Stocktake: More hollow stock market boasts from Trump

You might think the US stock market recovery has been driven by faith in uber-profitable tech stocks like Apple and Amazon. You would be wrong. Markets have rallied because of one man – President Donald J Trump.

"I've set records on the stock market even during the pandemic," Trump boasted last week. "That doesn't happen by accident," he added, before throwing in the obligatory warning that a Joe Biden presidency would result in "a depression the likes of which we haven't seen in this country".

Markets have already started to price in a Biden victory – data from Strategas Partners shows a basket of stocks perceived as being likely to perform well in a Biden presidency has outperformed Republican-friendly stocks in recent months – so Trump’s crash warning is fanciful.

So too is his contention that stocks “are owned by everybody”; only half of Americans have any market exposure, mainly via their retirement accounts, while just one in seven have direct equity investments.

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As for his oft-repeated assertion that he is some sort of stock market saviour, LPL Research data shows the Dow has averaged annualised gains of 9.9 per cent under Trump – right in line with historical averages, and far from the record-breaking levels imagined by America’s narcissistic president.