Conventional Media Was Surprised

It's hard to believe has been a year since Donald Trump shocked everybody, at least everybody in the conventional media, Wall Street, all the pundits, professional politicians, anybody who has anything to do with Saturday Night Live... Nobody believed that Trump a snowball's chance in Hell of winning the White House. Hillary Clinton had already picked out her china patterns, she had this big glass ceiling that she was going to shatter in her victory party.  So everybody believed that Trump was going to lose and Hillary was going to win even after the polls closed. It took about an hour or two for reality to set in.

Conventional Media Was Surprised

So now it has been a year.  Of course the stock market has gone up a lot during that year, in fact, the market was up just under 21% in Trump's first year.  Of course, Trump never lets you forget this because he constantly talks about it, but he says this stock market rise is unprecedented - and that is a lie! Why do you have to go out of your way to lie when 21% is still a big move.  In fact if you go back to Eisenhower, which is almost 70 years, this is the fifth biggest rally for a President's first year.  That's still not bad, it's fifth place. The guy in last place is George W. Bush.

Not Unprecedented

Unfortunately, Bush was elected in 2000 and the market tanked that year, it was down 20.4%.  That is the worst performance of any President. Trump is #5, but let's look at #1; Number one was Bill Clinton - Democrat, 1996, his second term, the market was up 31.7%. So that's a 50% greater rise than Trump's first year, yet Trump is claiming that this is unprecedented.  Kennedy, first term, 1960, the market was up 28.4%. In third place, Barack Obama's second term the market rallied 23.9%.  Then George Bush (41), in 1988, the stock market rallied 21.7%. So Trump is certainly in the top third, but his first year is not unprecedented.