After ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, President-elect Donald Trump stopped short of telling investors to buy more shares as he is about to take office.
“I don't want to be in a situation where they do and we have a dip or something, because that could always happen,” Trump told CNBC's Jim Cramer on “Squawk on the Street.”
Trump repeatedly used the stock market as a performance barometer during his first term. At that time the S&P500 scaled almost 68% and reached an all-time high. Part of this was due to the corporate tax cuts passed by the government at the time. The Federal Reserve also kept interest rates near historic lows at the time in an attempt to fuel inflation – which also pushed up stock prices.
President-elect Donald Trump is greeted by traders as he walks across the New York Stock Exchange in New York on Thursday, December 12, 2024.
Alex Brandon | AP
He pointed out the possibility of lowering taxes again at the stock exchange on Thursday. “We're going to do things that haven't been done before. We're going to cut taxes even further,” he said. “You pay 21% if you don't build here. If you do, we're going to try to increase the 15%, but you have to build your product, make your product in the US.”
Wall Street CEOs and investors, such as David Solomon of Goldman Sachs and Bill Ackman of Pershing Square, came to the NYSE for Trump's bell-ringing. Ackman later told CNBC that “most of the country understands that the more successful companies are, the more the stock market goes up, the more their wages go up, the more job growth, the more opportunity, the more companies come to this country.” , it lifts all boats.”
To be fair, while Trump wasn't telling investors to buy stocks now, he remained optimistic over the longer term.
“I think in the long run this will be a country like no other. We had the three best years ever until Covid happened,” he said after being named Time Magazine's “Person of the Year.”
—With reporting by Yun Li
