Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the stock market's rally since the election is a
positive reflection on the new administration.
In an
interview on Thursday, CNBC's Becky Quick asked Mnuchin if he viewed the rally
as a score card.
"Absolutely,
this is a mark-to-market business, and you see what the market thinks,"
Mnuchin replied.
Asked about
whether a market pullback would reflect disappointment in the speed of
President Donald Trump's agenda, Mnuchin said he was not focused on day-to-day
gyrations.
Still, his
comments are a bookmark to return to at the end of Trump's presidency, since
the stock market's performance will likely be used as one way to assess how
investors appraised the administration. The S&P 500 returned 234% during
President Barack Obama's eight years in office.
The
benchmark S&P 500 has jumped 10% since the election on the hope that Trump
will deliver on his promises of corporate tax reform and fewer regulations. The
index, which closed at 2,362.82 on Wednesday, has already eclipsed the average
year-end forecast among Wall Street analysts, according to Bloomberg.
The
financial sector has been the poster child of the rally as investors see the
big banks benefitting from deregulation and higher interest rates. Goldman
Sachs' shares contributed the most to the gains of the Dow Jones industrial
average, which on Wednesday closed at a ninth-straight record high for the
first time since 1987.
"We
believe we can get back to sustainable [economic] growth of 3% or more,"
Mnuchin said.
(Business
Insider)
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