(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) At this point in President Donald Trump’s tenure, stock returns are not only higher than the average president’s during the same three-year period—they are more than double the average.
Since Trump took office in 2016, the S&P 500 has gained more than 50 percent—from below 2,000 points to above 3,200, CNBC reported.
In comparison, the average gains for the S&P 500 during the first three years of previous presidencies was only 23 percent, according to information from Bespoke Investment Group that dates back to 1928.
The bellwether index—a measure of the overall strength of the economy—has jumped 28 percent during Trump’s third year in office, compared with an average 12.8 percent gain for the third year of previous presidents..
In Trump’s first year, the bellwether index reached 19.4 percent while the average president gained 5.7 percent.
In his second year, the bellwether index fell 6.2 percent while the average president gained 4.5 percent.
The 3,200 mark for the S&P 500 is the “seventh round-number milestone of 2019” as well as an all-time high, CNBC reported.
The Federal Reserve boosted interest rates during the first two years of Trump’s presidency. But the central bank gave the economy a major jolt when it cut interest rates three times in 2019, from 2.5 percent to 1.75 percent.
These were the first rate cuts since the 2008 financial crisis. Former President Barack Obama’s low-growth presidency benefited from near-zero interest rates for nearly all eight years.
The stock market during Obama’s third year jumped 32 percent, but those gains followed the Great Recession, when the market essentially bottomed out just before his election.
The economic outlook in 2011 remained artificially buoyed by the Federal Reserve’s zero-interest policies, as well as the massive stimulus package enacted during Obama’s first month in office.
A year earlier, in 2010, he had declared an unemployment rate hovering around 10 percent to be the “new normal.”
“There are times when I thought that the economy would have gotten better by now,” he told 60 Minutes. “You know, one of the things I think you understand as president is you’re held responsible for everything, but you don’t always have control of everything, right?”
Alongside the historic stock market gains under Trump, workers have also benefited from a 3.5 percent unemployment rate, the lowest since 1969.
Even the economic forecasts, which once reflexively defaulted to doom-saying statements about the Trump bubble bursting, have grown more bullish as his growth trend shows unprecedented resilience.
CNBC reported that Trump could see good stock market, wage, and employment numbers in 2020.
Wall Street analysts have predicted a 4 percent increase in the S&P 500 during Trump’s fourth year, about a 100 point gain from today’s 3,230.
