AI ANALYSIS & OPINION
Editorial illustrationTrump’s $3tn market claim does not show investors hated the election result
The S&P 500 rose on the first trading day after the US midterms; its companies lost an estimated $2.9 trillion in market value the following day.
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In a Truth Social post on 14 November, President Donald Trump said the stock market lost $3 trillion “immediately after the Election”, adding that investors worldwide “hated seeing what took place on Election Day”. He also said the market had since risen, but did not identify an index or specify an exact comparison period.
The US midterms on 3 November delivered major gains to Democrats. On 5 November, Trump had explicitly blamed that day’s market fall on the party’s success.
The S&P 500, an index of large US companies, rose 1.6% on 4 November, the first trading day after the vote. It then dropped 4.4% on 5 November, erasing that gain. From the election-day close to 5 November, the index fell about 2.8%. The Associated Press also reported gains in London, Paris and Shanghai on 4 November, while Japan’s Nikkei fell.
A Dow Jones report put the loss in market value of S&P 500 companies on 5 November alone at an estimated $2.9 trillion – close to Trump’s figure. That measures a change in share valuations, not necessarily losses realised through sales.
In a separate interview with Stephen A. Smith on 12 November, Trump said the $3 trillion loss happened “the day after the election”, according to a transcript published by Roll Call’s Factba.se. That timing is wrong for the S&P 500: the $2.9 trillion estimate concerns 5 November.
By 13 November, the last trading day before Trump’s post, the S&P 500 had regained about 62% of the index points it lost on 5 November. It remained roughly 0.1% below its election-day closing level.
Trump Media, the company behind Truth Social, fell 24.5% on 4 November even as the wider market rose. An October regulatory filing said a trust with Trump as its sole beneficiary held 114.75 million shares, about 41% of the company, as of 15 October.
The 5 November sell-off was led by AI-linked shares; chipmaker Nvidia fell 9.3%. The Associated Press reported concern that Democratic gains could slow construction of AI data centres.
Strategists at asset manager State Street Investment Management said the election added political and regulatory uncertainty to a correction already under way, amid concerns about financing and valuations. A global semiconductor index was already about 20% below its peak before the vote, they said. The market moves do not establish how much of the fall the election caused, or how investors worldwide felt about the result.
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