The Daily Prophet: Stock Traders Celebrate Nonexistent Tax Cuts

Judging by the final price action in the U.S. stock market, one would assume it was nothing but good vibes on a day when a broad outline of President Donald Trump's long-awaited tax plan was released. In fact, it was downright gut-wrenching. Yes, the S&P 500 Index just missed setting a record high, but not before opening strong and then plunging into the red before recovering. It was like the good old days when there actually used to be some volatility.

If anything, one might ask why the market as measured by the S&P 500 Index didn't do much better than rallying 0.41 percent? After all, it was just days ago that many skeptics assigned zero odds to tax cuts amid the political turmoil in D.C. If Republicans thought health care was tough, just wait until they try to tackle tax reform, they said. In that sense, the gains can be called a relief rally -- a relief that any type of plan was presented, albeit without many details. In the days and weeks ahead, investors may find that the promised corporate tax cut is not really much of a cut. Although Republicans say the plan is to reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from the current 35 percent, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that more than 250 of the largest U.S. companies already paid an effective rate of just 21.2 percent from 2008 to 2015.