The stock market has stopped paying attention to what Trump says
Matt Cardy/Stringer/Getty Images
Now they're met with a yawn.
That dynamic was at work in US stocks on Monday as Trump's statement that he's "looking into" breaking up the big Wall Street banks barely made a dent in regular trading.
Several measures showed traders immediately reacting to the news in a moderate way, only to revert to normal within an hour.
The KBW Bank Index, which tracks all of the biggest US lenders, dropped as much as 0.8% in the minutes following Trump's comments before erasing the entire decline over the 45 minutes that followed. The gauge finished flat on the day.
The benchmark S&P 500 pared gains by 0.2% immediately after the statement, only to reverse within 30 minutes. The index wound up 0.2% higher on the day, just 3.2% from a record high.
The CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, which serves as a barometer for investor fear, spiked right after the news. It too wiped out its move within a half hour, finishing 3% lower and never leaving negative territory. So much for nervousness.
Still, research firm Compass Point isn't yet ready to sound the all-clear for banks. If progress on bank regulation is actually made, the firm sees large lenders being particularly susceptible to new announcements.
"The odds of Glass-Steagall 2.0 being enacted in this Congress remain low, but the headline risk for money center banks will surely persist as the populist power of the issue is simply too great," the firm wrote in a Monday note.
- Colon cancer rates are rising in young people. If you have two symptoms you should get a colonoscopy, a GI oncologist says.
- I spent $2,000 for 7 nights in a 179-square-foot room on one of the world's largest cruise ships. Take a look inside my cabin.
- An Ambani disruption in OTT: At just ₹1 per day, you can now enjoy ad-free content on JioCinema
- In second consecutive week of decline, forex kitty drops $2.28 bn to $640.33 bn
- SBI Life Q4 profit rises 4% to ₹811 crore
- IMD predicts severe heatwave conditions over East, South Peninsular India for next five days
- COVID lockdown-related school disruptions will continue to worsen students’ exam results into the 2030s: study
- India legend Yuvraj Singh named ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 ambassador