Unemployment down to 3.9%

[_EAllusion]

Cinepro -

I agree that the President has very little short term impact on the overall economy generally. Or, more accurately stated, the difference between who is elected has little impact. Presidential actions matter a lot, but they all tend to say within a narrow band of instiutional momentum. Also, presidents aren't emporers and you can only understand their actions in office in tandem with Congrssional power.

While this is generally true, I think you also have to understand that there are exceptions. The 2017 stock market run up probably is in part well explained by anticipation of corporate tax breaks that ultimately happened. The recent volatility of the same is probably in part explained by Trump's chaotic actions on trade.

If Trump treated his Fed appointments like he did every other area of government and appointed corrupt yahoos, that would've been a big deal for the economy. But he didn't and ended up appointmenting the kind of people presidents usually appoint.

Finally, you can't simply credit economic performance to when a president is in office. There are easily understood delayed effects. Obama oversaw massive job loss in the early months of his presidency due to a major recession he had nothing to do with that started under Bush. Likewise Trump is benefitting from a benign recovery economy that is a continuation of conditions that prevailed in the late Obama years.

Regarding Hawk's comments, if we interpret them as a criticism of hypocritical and inconsistent right-wing media narratives, they're on point. If we interpret them as naïve economic analysis, then they aren't.

[_Hawkeye]

Here is another graph that makes the point about how Trump has been taking credit for the DOW and then suddenly he stops talking about it after his policies start to kick in. Gee, wonder why?

My point is that it is (most likely) a misnomer to post graphs with arrows pointing to "Obama takes office" and "Trump takes office." As you can plainly see, there were dips and rises during Obama's terms, and there will no doubt be dips and rises during Trump's terms. It's not about whether or not Trump is talking about the Dow after "his policies kick in." It's about whether or not "his policies" are actually affecting the Dow, and whether the Dow is even a worthy metric of the economy.

I'd say the exact same thing if Hillary were President and the Dow had done the same thing. Just because Presidents pretend like the Dow means something doesn't mean we have to pretend as well.

Why do we still care about the Dow?

Cinepro, I follow the market and every day the financial watchdogs post articles discussing forecasts and explanations as to why the market did what it did that day. Nearly every "dip" over the last three months has been easily attributed to something Trump did or said.

But like I said before, I'm not arguing that a President has that much sway over the market generally speaking. I'm pointing out the obvious hypocrisy on the Right. Between November and January I heard "Hows your portfolio doing?" in a mocking tone at least 100 times from Trump supporters who thought the DOW was vindicating their vote.

[_cinepro]

But like I said before, I'm not arguing that a President has that much sway over the market generally speaking. I'm pointing out the obvious hypocrisy on the Right. Between November and January I heard "Hows your portfolio doing?" in a mocking tone at least 100 times from Trump supporters who thought the DOW was vindicating their vote.

I'm certainly not going to argue the point about hypocrisy in politics or the media.