President Donald Trump took time during a speech in Warsaw, Poland, on Thursday to comment on the economic situation in the US and the recent record highs for the stock market.
During a speech addressing the 3Cs initiative, a new economic agreement among countries in the eastern part of the European Union, Trump said the recent highs for the major US stock indexes were making everyone else rich.
From the speech:
“And the United States is doing very well — very strong. We’ve taken off restrictions and people are really moving hard. So when I say that the stock market is at an all-time high, we’ve picked up in market value almost $4 trillion since November 8, which was the election. Four trillion dollars — it’s a lot of money. Personally, I picked up nothing, but that’s all right. Everyone else is getting rich. That’s OK. I’m very happy.”
Trump has repeatedly mentioned the stock market’s all-time highs over the past few days, arguing that the media is not giving the records enough coverage.
“Dow hit a new intraday all-time high! I wonder whether or not the Fake News Media will so report?” Trump tweeted on Monday.
The Dow Jones industrial average did hit an intraday high on Monday, but it closed below its record set June 19. The S&P 500 has not crossed its June 19 high, and the Nasdaq Composite is roughly 200 points off its high from June 8.
Still, markets have been on a tear recently as strong earnings growth and other underlying fundamentals have boosted gains.
As for Trump’s personal gain, his administration has said the president sold all of his stock holdings in June 2016, though it remains somewhat unclear since Trump never released his tax returns.
Trump also made mention of the strong labor market in his speech.
“We have, I think, 16 years — in 16 years it’s the lowest unemployment rate,” Trump said.
The official unemployment rate did drop to 4.3% in May’s jobs report, the lowest since May 2001. But to be fair, it was already at 4.6% when Trump got elected, and the pace of job gains over the past three months slightly slowed.
The next reading on the labor market will come when the June jobs report is released Friday.
