Returning to Washington on Thursday night, President Trump took stock of a tumultuous week for markets, saying everything was going well as it was “pretty much flat.”
Of course, this week’s trading isn’t quite over yet – stocks opened lower on Friday – but the president assessed that “the market has responded well” to his whirlwind of tariff threats and retreats this week.
“Pretty even, right?” he said.
In fact, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) is poised to head lower into the four-day trading week after Tuesday’s sharp losses. It was likely a second straight weekly decline, as the relief that boosted stocks on Wednesday and Thursday appeared to be fading.
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Still, the president’s remarks after returning from the World Economic Forum showed that he continues to pay close attention to the financial impact of his initiatives.
Trump also noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) is approaching 50,000, focusing his attention on positive returns on Wednesday and Thursday.
The president’s brief comments, part of a broader exchange with reporters late Thursday, were just the latest market commentary in a week that has seen the president’s actions impact markets more sharply than usual.
The president mentioned markets during a speech in Davos on Wednesday, noting that “our stock market fell for the first time yesterday,” but brushed it off. He predicted that “the stock market will double in a relatively short period of time because of everything that’s going on.”
Observers were quick to dismiss the prospect of a doubling in the near term, with Slatestone Wealth chief market strategist Kenny Polcari comparing Trump’s comments to “noise” in an interview with Yahoo Finance.
“It’s no use,” he said. “It really doesn’t do anything.”
Overall, Trump affects the market in some form every day from Monday to Thursday. On Monday and Tuesday, he touted previous highs and again blamed Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for the market’s failure to move higher.
On Thursday, he even called the Fed “not credible” at one point.
While Trump has focused heavily on markets this week, some administration officials have sought to downplay the role of market volatility in his decision-making.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant denied to Politico that Trump’s decision to abandon the 10% tariffs on eight European countries over Greenland was triggered by price fluctuations.
