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The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DOW) hit new highs on Wednesday and Thursday, breaking the 20,000 mark for the first time in its history. Check it out! I was on @foxandfriends talking #Dow20K! Find out if this @realdonaldtrump bump is headed higher! #markets #betterwithfriends pic.twitter.com/GAxukuZDfN — Nicole Petallides (@NPetallides) January 26, 2017 This rally was historical for other reasons as well. Per our research this is only the 2nd time since 1937 when the Inauguration date was set at January 20th that the stock market hit two new closing highs in the four trading days after the inauguration. This occurred...

The momentum for U.S. stocks continued on Thursday, with stock futures pointing to fresh records at the open for all three major benchmarks ahead of a spate of earnings and economic reports, including jobless claims and home sales. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 46 points, or 0.2%, to 20,049, indicating a second straight day of opening above the psychologically important 20,000 handle. The benchmark DJIA, +0.78% on Wednesday reached the milestone for the first time ever, closing up 155.80 points to 20,068.51 over optimism over President Donald Trump’s policies and a solid round of corporate earnings.

Where will the stock market go in the Trump administration? During the Obama presidency, it has advanced nicely, even amid so-so growth. Andrew Houghton and Nicholas Atkeson of Delta Investment Management in San Francisco show us why a bullish view for the market has further to rise. The presidential election cycle occurs every four years, no matter what is going on with the economic cycle and stock market. Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009. The country had been in recession 14 months, the housing market bubble had popped over a year earlier and the S&P 500 had lost roughly 46%...

President-elect Donald Trump's views on a range of issues, from immigration to climate change, alienated many left-leaning tech employees in Silicon Valley, but none more so than those working at Alphabet. During the presidential campaign, 33 employees at the tech giant donated $20,000 to Trump, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That was a tiny fraction of the 1,400 employees who donated to Hillary Clinton's campaign, for a total of $1.6 million. And it wasn't just political donations. The revolving door between the Obama administration and the company swung hard and frequently during the past eight years: 22 former...

There’s a chorus calling for stocks to sell off on or around Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20. What does history show? Ryan Detrick, LPL Financial’s senior market strategist and historical number wrangler, found that there is a tendency for equities to weaken once the oath of office has been administered—but it’s often delayed a few weeks. The logic behind the calls for stocks to weaken after the swearing-in ceremony centers on the old market adage: “buy the rumor, sell the news.” The argument is that the market rally that has followed Trump’s Nov. 8 election victory has factored...

Bank stocks have surged nearly 30% since Election Day as investors position for a mix of higher interest rates, stronger growth, and a rollback of some crisis-era regulations under President-elect Donald Trump. These expectations are now being priced into the shares of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, which sit at record highs, as well as recovering firms such as Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. Goldman Sachs is up 35% since Election Day, as is BofA. Morgan Stanley has surged 28% and JPMorgan has gained 25%. All of these stocks have been fueled by a move in the 10-year U.S. Treasury...

Part of Donald Trump’s fiscal policy targets mainstream America, not asset classes such as the stock market, bond market and real estate as monetary stimulus does. The stock market has rallied since the presidential election on expectations fiscal-stimulus policies proposed by Donald Trump will benefit the economy. That might be justified, but that doesn’t mean the stock market can continue to rally in the short run. Longer-term positive influences from fiscal-policy improvements, instead of monetary-policy stimulus, are clear. Still, those positives won’t be immediate. Part of Trump’s fiscal policy targets mainstream America, not asset classes such as the stock market,...

Even as the American economy grows, many average investors are losing opportunities to own a piece of it. The number of public companies plunged by 37% to 5,734 as of June 2016 from a peak of 9,113 in 1997, according to the Center for Securities Research at the University of Chicago, as reported in the Wall Street Journal. In fact, today the U.S. has roughly as many public companies as in 1982, yet real gross domestic product (GDP) is about 2.6 times greater, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Partly due to mergers, the size of the...

On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump’s first news conference since July didn’t deliver fresh insights into the billionaire’s policies, but it did manage to whipsaw Wall Street stocks. U.S. equities tumbled after the presser started, with comments from Trump that drug companies were “getting away with murder” with respect to pricing. However, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.50% the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.28% and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.21% all closed higher in the wake of the hourlong conference. Equities had traded higher on the promise clarity on Trump’s promise of delivering a shot in the arm to...

Those who haven't learned will get run over Even though President-elect Donald Trump has not been sworn in yet, there appears to be a lot of optimism about things to come from his administration. The stock market didn’t just “tick” up. It has zoomed up to a new all-time record. Consumer confidence about spending and the economy is on the rise. And his cabinet and senior staff nominees are driving liberals crazy, while conservatives and patriots are cheering the nominations.

Looking back, it is clear to Jim Cramer that the world changed on Election Day in 2016. "You may love the results or hate them, but one thing is for certain, just getting the darned election over with turned out to be a big deal," the "Mad Money" host said. If President-elect Donald Trump delivered on all of his pro-business promises, then many of the strong moves of the stock market could be justified, he added. "What is really dawning on people right now is exactly how frozen our economy was by this endless election and how unthawed it seems...

Dow 19,000! We’ve crossed that mark for the first time — and the S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite and Russell 2000 small-cap index are all at record highs as well. The last time all four major stock market averages hit new highs at the same time was December 31, 1999. Wall Street could hardly be more excited as it looks ahead to the fiscal stimulus it expects to see from a Trump administration. Never mind that a large percentage of the equity market isn't participating in the advance. Or that Trump's fiscal plans are expected to double the national debt. Or...

Shares of gun manufacturers took a big hit Wednesday morning, after news that Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election. Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co. each fell more than 12 percent after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, and the Republicans retained control of the House and the Senate.

Last night once it was clear Trump was going to win, they started whining about the Dow Jones futures being down by 500+ points. I checked a bit ago and it was up 81. Now it is up 145. Looks to me like it is skyrocketing thanks to Trump!

he stock market's election year performance between July 31 and Oct. 31 has often accurately predicted the next president — and this year it's pointing to a victory by Donald Trump, if history is a guide. Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA, says the market's decline this fall has been a bad omen for the incumbent party and Hillary Clinton, who still holds a six point national lead in a new poll. The S&P 500 is down 2.2 percent since its close of 2,173 on July 29, a Friday and the last trading day of July.

Discount brokerage Scottrade is being acquired by rival TD Ameritrade in a $4 billion deal. The companies announced the deal early Monday, following several weeks of news reports about the merger. The sale is subject to regulatory approvals, and is slated to close by Sept. 30, 2017. Scottrade will convert to TD Ameritrade systems in 2018. Combined, the two companies have $944 billion in total client assets and 10 million funded client accounts. "It gives us a lot of power to combine the two," Scottrade's founder and CEO Rodger Riney told the Post-Dispatch Monday. "It is a business that has...

Minneapolis — Target cut its profit and comparable-store sales outlook amid stiffer competition and its own stumbles in areas like grocery sales. The discounter’s second-quarter net income fell nearly 10%, though that was better than what most had expected. Sales at stores open at least a year fell 1.1%, reversing seven straight quarters of gains. Target shares were down more than 6% in mid-morning trading Wednesday. The quarter underscores challenges that Target and other retailers face from Amazon.com and shoppers who remain cautious about spending.

Submitted by Nick Colas of Convergex Many of the smartest investors out there hate stocks. Since May, we’ve heard negative equity calls from Stan Druckenmiller, George Soros, Carl Icahn, Jeff Gundlach and Bill Gross. Wall Street lore says “Never argue about markets with a guy who is much richer than you”. So we’ll take the discussion in a different direction: what do they know? Successful investors are always more plugged in than the market as a whole – hence their success. And while we can only guess at the lynchpins of their negative take on stocks, we do have some...

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says he’s never been a big investor, but when it comes to putting his money in U.S. stocks he told the FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney, “I don’t like a lot of things that I see.” “I did invest and I got out and it was actually very good timing,” he said. Trump expanded on why he’s skeptical of investing in the markets. “I don’t like a lot of the signs that I’m seeing... He added: “The only reason the stock market is where it is, is because you get free money.” When asked about...

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves." -- Matthew 7:15 I try to exclude personal experiences from my diary and only include observations related to the markets. But I have to start the morning by saying that the past few days have been moving ones of monumental importance on multiple fronts for myself and my family. Let's just leave it at that. As for Wall Street this morning, aggressive liquidity continues to buoy stocks. The money is coming from a combination of the world's central banks and historically large share buybacks,...