The Dow Jones Industrial Average flew past the historic milestone of 20,000 points on Wednesday as it continued its climb since Donald Trump was elected president in November. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also reached record territory.
The Dow has improved more than 1,700 points since the election, suggesting that investors are optimistic about the U.S. economy in Trump's hands, said CNN Money.
"The stock market has given (Trump) this extraordinary vote of approval," Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, told CNN. "Happy days are here again."
The Wall Street Journal's Greg Ip said that despite Trump's lean toward protectionism, Great Britain leaving the European Union, and France possibly wanting to leave the euro, investors appear to agree that the positives outweigh the negatives.
"What has changed is how investors assess the balance between upside and downside risks," said Ip. "Their worries about Mr. Trump's protectionism or European populists' growing threat to the euro are outweighed by the pro-business tilt of Mr. Trump's cabinet picks; the prospect of more infrastructure spending and lower taxes, especially on profits; better bank profits from rising bond yields and lower odds of more negative central-bank rates; and the boost to U.S. oil producers since the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and several other countries agreed to trim production to prop up prices."
Some critics have argued, though, that the 20,000-point benchmark only represents a small group (30 in total) of the thousands of stocks that make up the broader equity market and that "outsize moves" can make a big effect on the Dow because the gauge is price weighted.
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