Trump tweets on US stocks winning streak , but is he right?

The S&P 500 stock index posted a record high on Wednesday, prompting Donald Trump to tweet enthusiastically that the market was on its “longest winning streak in decades”. Is this correct, or are we dealing with just another alternative fact?

Trump tweets on US stocks winning streak , but is he right?

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What was certainly right about Trump’s tweet was its timing. The S&P 500 closed marginally lower on Thursday, ending an 9-day rally that ran since 7 February. As this includes a weekend, the rally amounted to a 7-day winning streak.

It’s true that winning streaks of such length rarely occur, but they are not quite as exceptional as Trump wants you to believe.

We need to go back more than three years to find a S&P 500 winning streak exceeding February 2017’s 7 days: to the period between 2 and 11 September 2013, to be precise. But still: a few years is not ‘decades’.

Conclusion: not true

Our conclusion must be that the stock market was on its longest winning streak in several years when Trump sent his tweet, not the longest winning streak in decades. We have therefore caught Donald Trump tweeting an alternative fact here.

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