Economics
Trump Unleashed Animal Spirits and Then He Crushed Them
- 30-year yields are as low as when Trump was elected in 2016
- Trump’s stock market doesn’t look much different from Obama’s
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If there was one thing investors thought they knew about Donald Trump, it was that he was on their side. He was the president who was going to reflate the economy, unleash animal spirits and drive up returns. Now that certainty has been demolished by a trade war, and two years of market history is being rewritten.
Take Treasuries, where 30-year rates -- which rose a full percentage point to as high as 3.5% -- have plunged so fast that they’re all the way back to where they were on Election Day. Equities are still smartly up, but the rate of gain has slowed to where the Trump stock market isn’t much more buoyant than Barack Obama’s.