Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of March 6, 2018

Article Excerpt

Donald Trump claimed credit for the huge market-stock rise that began the day after he won the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. It’s only natural that media commentators would blame Trump for the market setback that began early last month—especially commentators who already had a low opinion of him. As the setback got started, the media singled out economic critiques of the Trump tax reform as a risk. Economists said the new, lower tax rates would cut government tax income. This, they said, would balloon the U.S. federal budget deficit. This in turn would over-stimulate the economy and lead to higher inflation, and from there to higher interest rates. Before Trump got elected, low interest rates helped push up stock prices. Those low rates were partly due to money creation by the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks. However, the weak economic rebound from the recession, and the years of slow growth that followed, kept loan demand weak as well. This also…