Donald Trump warns of epic stock market crash if he is not re-elected
- US president will officially launch his 2020 campaign in Florida on Tuesday
- Research shows the Dow’s performance under Trump has been middling and trails gains made under Barack Obama and Bill Clinton
US President Donald Trump, gearing up for the official start of his 2020 campaign, warned that the US would face an epic stock market crash if he is not re-elected.
“If anyone but me takes over,” Trump told his 61 million Twitter followers on Saturday, “there will be a Market Crash the likes of which has not been seen before!”
“Tuesday will be a Big Crowd and Big Day,” he said in another tweet.
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The president has claimed several times this year and as recently as Friday in a Fox & Friends interview that the US stock market would be 5,000 to 10,000 points higher if the Federal Reserve had not raised interest rates four times in 2018.
He also tweeted in February that “had the opposition party” won in 2016, “the Stock Market would be down at least 10,000 points by now” – an unprovable assertion. And in January Trump suggested that if “you want to see a Stock Market Crash, Impeach Trump”.
Research by Macrotrends shows the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s performance so far in Trump’s term has been middling compared with his predecessors, and trails the gains made under Democrats Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
It is a touch above the gains logged under Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush; George W. Bush had presided over a losing market at this point in his first term.
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The more narrow DJIA, whose performance Trump likes to reference, last peaked more than eight months ago, on October 3.
The Dow posted 71 record high closes in 2017, starting within a week of Trump’s inauguration, and another 15 in 2018, helped by the passage of a Republican tax bill.
