Trump and Stocks: What Gives?

The International Monetary Fund, echoing increasingly gloomy sentiment in Washington, has concluded that the Donald Trump administration and Congress probably won't succeed in enacting tax reform or even significant tax cuts. The Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee calls the White House "an adult day care center" and says he fears that the president's reckless bluster may lead us into World War III. The president, meanwhile, says he wants to compare IQ test scores with his secretary of state.

Stock market investors do not appear to be worried about any of these things. The Dow Jones Industrial Average set a new closing record Tuesday. The Standard and Poor's 500 Index and the Nasdaq Composite Index didn't quite do that, but they did both close at all-time highs last week. The overall performance of the stock market so far in the Trump era -- measured either from election or inauguration -- is undeniably impressive. I briefly considered updating my exercise of two months ago, in which I considered stock market performance under every president since William McKinley, but it didn't really seem worth the effort. Stocks have done well in the Trump era. Period.