Yahoo Finance NYSE Exec: Market reaction to Trump’s policies is a ‘mixed bag’
The stock market’s reaction to President Trump’s policies has been mixed, according to John Tuttle, chief operating officer at the New York Stock Exchange.
“After [Trump] was elected, people started focusing on the positive business reforms he was talking about,” Tuttle told Yahoo Finance editor-in-chief Andy Serwer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We saw meaningful tax reform, which the market responded favorably to.”
Tax reform, which took effect in early 2018, dropped corporate tax rates to 21% from 35% and sparked a wave of wage hikes, share buybacks, dividend increases and CAPEX spending across publicly-traded companies large and small.
But, Tuttle also said the market hasn’t responded favorably to trade war worries and political gridlock sparked by the current government shutdown, which is now the longest in history.
Trump is weighing stiff tariff increases against various imports from China if a trade deal isn’t reached by a March 1 deadline.
“It’s a mixed bag,” Tuttle noted, referring to the market’s reaction since November 2016.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) closed at 2,139 on Nov. 8, 2016. It is now trading near 2,633. That’s a gain of 23%. The index is still down roughly 10.1% from its Sept. 20, 2018, record closing high.
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Scott Gamm is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @ScottGamm.
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