Why is the stock market still up when the economic news isn't great?

[ataraxia]

Democrat go-o-o-o-od, Republican ba-a-a-ad

Sure. Even Donald Trump himself knew that too, before he realized he could just exploit all that Republican party ignorance and bigotry.

 

[ataraxia]

For sure, it juat didn't grow for multiple years under Biden.

That sucks, and was terrible for most investors. For sure 2024 was a good year, but it followed multiple bad years. And the last 6 months have been better than all of 2024.

Which is awesome, I think, for people who invest. Much better than 2022-2024 under Biden.

What a weird thing to say. The stock market is still treading water in the same place where it was in January when Biden left. It hasn't budged. Some Golden Age ya got there.

 

[Bullseye]

With tariffs staring us in the face and a bad jobs report, why is the stock market still hitting highs? In case you're wondering, this is from Marketwatch.

Denial is driving the stock market higher — but what’s coming next can’t be ignored​

The truth about tariffs? They’ll hit company profits or bring us higher inflation — maybe both.​

By
Mark Hulbert

Investors are in denial about tariffs’ impact on corporate profits and inflation. The truth is that if companies choose to absorb tariffs, profit margins shrink. If they pass the tariffs along, inflation heats up. It’s hard to see how financial markets can escape the horns of this dilemma. That said, several factors have been working together to postpone the impact of tariffs. But this grace period looks to be about done.

Why has the U.S. stock market so far been mostly able to ignore this inconvenient truth? Because it hasn’t shown up fully in the data. For example, the blended net profit margin for the S&P 500 for the second quarter was 12.8%, according to FactSet — above the previous quarter’s net profit margin of 12.7% and higher than the year-ago net profit margin of 12.2%.

This implies that corporations preserved profit margins by passing along the tariffs in the form of higher prices. Yet the latest inflation numbers don’t show a big uptick since “liberation day” tariffs were announced in early April. As recently as June, many market analysts were predicting that the second quarter would show either lower profit margins or significantly higher inflation. “Neither of the above” was not given serious consideration, and yet that’s what happened. “Who woulda thunk it at the start of the [second] quarter?” Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices, wrote in an email.

One big factor helping support stocks has been the timing of imports. Anticipating that tariffs would soon be announced, companies in the first quarter imported much more than they needed, enabling them in the second quarter to sell at pre-tariff prices. This is why GDP was reported to have contracted in the first quarter. But for the inventory buildup, GDP would have grown. Crucially, inventory buildup can’t delay the inevitable more than a few months. Silverblatt said that he expects margins to be lower in the third quarter, “as the tariff costs are passed along to consumers and inventories are replenished at a higher rate.”

Denial is driving the stock market higher — but tariffs will soon take their toll

The truth about tariffs? They’ll hit company profits or bring us higher inflation — maybe both.

www.marketwatch.com

Maybe because the stock traders get the real data unfiltered through anti-Trump pseudo-economists?

 

[Bullseye]

Sure. Even Donald Trump himself knew that too, before he realized he could just exploit all that Republican party ignorance and bigotry.

And then along came Ohama.

 

[ataraxia]

And then along came Ohama.

Not sure what you mean. The stock market still grew at a faster rate under Obama than it has for the last eight months.

 

[CaughtInThe]

Stock Traders were the second group to figure out that Trump is full of shit.

Black women were the first group.

 

[Metric Mouse]

What a weird thing to say. The stock market is still treading water in the same place where it was in January when Biden left. It hasn't budged. Some Golden Age ya got there.

View attachment 67588200

Holy shit, is that the S&P 500!?

And it's up over 10% in your chart!? In less than a year?

That's good news for investors! Great news, actually! Still not the economy, but good news, right?

Not like it was in 2022-2024... those years sucked. How many retirees got cooked while they lost money for multiple years straight?

S&P 500

View data of the S&P 500, an index of the stocks of 500 leading companies in the US economy, which provides a gauge of the U.S. equity market.

fred.stlouisfed.org

 

[Sandy Shanks]

Investors know this is a Trump con.

I am very suspicious of the revised jobs report, the number one reason being, Trump lies too much. He cannot be trusted.

The second reason being, it is far too convenient for Trump, almost as if he wrote it. Nine months of the report occurred during the Biden administration, and its not pretty.

Trump virtually predicted this disastrous report following the weak July report.

CNN reports, "Trump and his administration spent the last month portraying recently dreadful jobs data as a “scam” and an organized vendetta against his presidency.

"Trump last month labeled the disappointing July jobs report as “rigged,” and fired Erika McEntarfer from her role as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner."

In other words, in Trump's mind, a "rigged" jobs report, a "scam" is a distinct possibility.

"Employers added only 22,000 nonfarm jobs in August, far short of Wall Street analyst forecasts of 80,000, while the nation's unemployment rate rose to 4.3% — the highest level since October of 2021," CBS, Sept. 5.

The BLS belongs to Trump now. Trump nominated E.J. Antoni, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"The move has raised concerns about the credibility of economic data going forward," CNN.

The Times reports, "The U.S. economy probably added close to a million fewer jobs in 2024 and early 2025 than previously reported, the latest sign that the labor market, until recently a bright spot in the economy, may be weaker than it initially appeared."

Put a different way, Trump is no longer responsible for the economy, according to the jobs report from his BLS.

"The revised data was released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as part of a longstanding annual process known as benchmarking. But the big downward adjustment comes at an awkward moment for the agency, just weeks after President Trump fired its top official following a separate set of negative revisions last month," Times.