(DCNF)—Biden is boasting about the recent stock market rally. He’s right that stocks have been on a tear for the last 14 months. The S&P 500 hit 5,000 for the first time in history. That’s up from 500 some 30 years ago.
Even with all our problems, the United States is the unrivaled alpha male nation. The dollar is the only currency that matters globally (the Euro and BRICS are weak little sisters), and for the first time, the U.S. economy produces far more than all of socialist Europe combined. Our Magnificent Seven Technology firms — Amazon, Apple, Google, Invidia, Meta, Microsoft and Tesla — are close to being worth more than all of the stocks combined in any other country With the exception of China.
But the Biden bull stock market story isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Most of the gains in the market have only made up for the miserable returns in Biden’s disastrous first two years in office when stocks lost almost 15 percent of their value. In other words, for the most part, the last 14 months have simply made up for the lost ground during the 2022 rout in stocks.
Yes, it’s true that in nominal terms stocks are at record highs. But one of the first rules of investing is that you need to pay attention to your after-inflation profits. If you make an investment in a widget company and in 10 years that stock has doubled in value but the price level in dollars of everything else has doubled, sorry, you’re no better off based on what you can buy with those profits.
Over that period the price level has risen by about 18 percent. The real (inflation-adjusted) rate of return in the S&P 500 after three years of Biden is thus only 8%. This is fairly anemic and well below the average annual real rate of return since the New York Stock Exchange opened its doors, which is a three year average of more than 20%.
Biden’s performance is also much worse than the bull market under Trump. The S&P was up 36% in real terms at this time of Trump’s presidency, or more than four times better.
Trump has made the case that the rise in the stock market in recent months is a result of the higher likelihood that he will be elected in November. I don’t put too much stock in that claim. If the stock market tanks, is he responsible for that too?
However, an analysis by ace investor Scott Bessent and a member of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity economic council, finds that fluctuations in the stock market over the past year have correlated positively with the betting market odds that Trump will win. Right now he stands at just above 50 percent. This relationship could be spurious and of course by far the biggest factor that drives stock valuations is profits.
One last price of investment advice. Investors should pay attention to the Democratic agenda if they win in November. The Biden economic plan calls for doubling the capital gains tax, taxing unrealized capital gains, and raising both the corporate tax rate and the dividend tax. That is very bad news for sure for stocks. And that, you can take to the bank.
Sound off about this article on the Economic Collapse Substack.
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation and a co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. He is co-author of the book “Trumponomics.”
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
