President Donald Trump on Monday rang the opening bells for both the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq — doing so from the Oval Office — in a symbolic gesture that underscores how closely he has aligned his presidency with the performance of financial markets.
Faced with high inflation that has been dragging down his popularity, Trump has been pushing Americans to pay attention to their 401(k) retirement accounts, arguing that his policies deserve credit for any market gains — especially as the November midterm elections approach.
“It’s all going well — the stock market is setting records virtually every day,” Trump told reporters last week before boarding Air Force One. “Thank you, President Trump.”
Despite that optimism, only 33% of U.S. adults say they approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to a June poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Monday’s Oval Office ceremony was designed to spotlight the rollout of Trump Accounts — a new program that allows children to invest in stock indexes, established as part of the Republicans’ sweeping 2025 tax and spending cuts legislation. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been a leading voice for the accounts, pointing out that a large portion of Americans have no direct stake in the stock market.
That reality means millions of households — particularly lower-income ones — are not seeing the benefits of recent market gains, which tend to flow to wealthier Americans or show up only in retirement accounts that won’t be touched for decades.
“Today, 38% of American adults do not own stocks,” Bessent said last December. “But with Trump Accounts, over time, we can get that number down to zero.”
The S&P 500 posted a gain of 17.9% in 2025, though that followed even stronger returns of 25% in 2024 and 26.3% in 2023 — both years when Democrat Joe Biden was in the White House. So far this year, the benchmark index is up roughly 10%.
Still, just as inflation eroded public support for Biden, Trump is now facing a similar political challenge. He won the 2024 election on a promise to lower costs for everyday Americans, but his tariff policies and the onset of the war in Iran have introduced new upward pressure on prices. The consumer price index has risen 4.2% over the last 12 months, compared to 3% when Trump began his second term in January 2025.
