After several weeks of teasing the investment community, today Wall Street finally pushed the Dow above the 20,000-level. The mainstream media contributed with its usual mixture of hype and mythology. The hype comes in the form of touting (relatively) minor pro-business initiatives from new President Donald Trump, while conveniently forgetting Trump's decision to pull out of the TPP and his stated intent to renegotiate NAFTA. The mythology comes from the absurd assertion that Republican control of all three branches of the U.S. government would ensure “things getting done quicker”.
Back in the real world, this was not what happened when the Democrats controlled all three branches during Obama's first term in office, nor was it the case when the previous Clinton regime controlled all three branches. The U.S.'s entirely dysfunctional “system of checks and balances” provides more than enough procedural loopholes for an obstructionist minority party to completely block virtually all legislation – just ask the Republicans.
In other markets; Canadian markets were mixed today with the S&P/TSX Composite higher while the Venture Exchange was lower. Overseas, major indices in Asia and Europe were all higher.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index rose 33.15 points to 15,643.84, while the TSX Venture Exchange lost 7.22 points to 799.52.
The Canadian dollar rose 0.0047 cents, remaining at 76 cents.
Crude oil prices lost $0.30 to $52.88.
The price of gold lost $9.37 to $1,199.89.
In U.S. markets; the Dow rose 155.80 points to 20,068.51, the S&P 500 was up 18.30 points to 2,298.37, and the NASDAQ rose 55.38 points to 5,656.34.
In world markets; the Nikkei added 273.38 points to 19,057.50, the Hang Seng rose 99.69 points to 23,049.12, the FTSE was up 14.12 points to 7,164.43, while the DAX gained 214.95 points to 11,806.05.