DOW ALL-TIME HIGH… Bull market echoes 1920s? Skyrocketing deficit…

Dow jumps more than 100 points to all-time high, rallies for a second day to start fourth quarter

  • Tuesday marks the Dow’s first record close since Sept. 21.
  • Intel climbs more than 3.5 percent to lift the Dow, while Boeing reaches an all-time high.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a record high on Tuesday as it rallied for a second day, boosted by gains in Intel and optimism around global trade.

The 30-stock index closed 122.73 points higher to 26,773.94 for its first record close since Sept. 21. Intel climbed more than 3.5 percent, while Boeing soared to an all-time high. These gains added to the 192-point pop in the Dow on Monday to start the fourth quarter.

The S&P 500, closed flat, however, at 2,923.43 while the Nasdaq Composite fell half a percent to 7,999.55 as large-cap tech names fell more than 1 percent.

This bull market run has echoes of the late 1920s, Nobel Prize-winning economist Shiller says

This bull market run has echoes of the late 1920s, Nobel Prize-winning economist Shiller says from CNBC.

The longest bull market in history could be showing worrying echoes of one of the greatest crashes Wall Street has ever seen.

Robert Shiller, professor of economics at Yale University and a Nobel laureate, says the steep run-up in this market rally is similar to the excesses of the 1920s before the October 1929 market crash and Great Depression.

“The 1920s is quite a legend that people are often thinking about,” Shiller said Friday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.” “I look at 1929 particularly as the end of the roaring ’20s and it ended in a bout of speculation. Between May and September of ’29 the stock market went up over 30 percent in just a few months.”

We are primarily funded by readers. Please subscribe and donate to support us!

Rapid stock market rises began even earlier. From the beginning of 1928 to Black Thursday on Oct. 24, 1929, the S&P 500 surged nearly 50 percent. Over the next five days, the index plummeted 23 percent. It had reached an all-time high just a month before the crash.

Skyrocketing Deficit? So What, Says New Washington Consensus

(Bloomberg) — With its plaintive call for balanced budgets, the fiscal hawk once pervaded Washington. But it’s getting harder to spot one.

That’s because of President Donald Trump, and the equal-and-opposite reaction he’s provoked on the U.S. left.

Trump is proving as indifferent to fiscal orthodoxy as to any other kind. The spending measure he signed on Friday, along with the one approved in March and December’s tax bill, amount to the biggest stimulus outside recessions since the 1960s. They sailed through a House led by the supposedly hawkish Paul Ryan, who’s due to step down in January without much progress on his goal of reining in so-called entitlements like social security — an illustration of how Republican deficit scolds are in retreat.

On the Democratic side, the reaction that’s firing up the grassroots isn’t “How could you do that?’’ It’s: “Why can’t we do that?’’

How to Pay?

Democrats opposed the tax bill, and party leaders have deplored Trump’s fiscal recklessness. But some Democrats are spinning it differently. There’s always room to boost spending at the Pentagon or finance tax cuts for the rich, goes their argument — so why not for social programs? “Ever notice how the ‘how do you pay for it’ argument is selectively employed against working class benefits?’’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a House candidate in New York, tweeted in July.

In both parties, deficit spenders are gaining ground. That makes Year Two of the Trump administration look increasingly like end-times if you are, for example, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

“The tax cuts really set off a spiral of irresponsible justifications for not caring about fiscal responsibility,’’ says Maya MacGuineas, president of the CRFB. The group gets funding from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a project of the late Wall Street billionaire, who advocated slashing social programs to balance the budget.

Views:

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.