Tracking Trump - Direction of the Country for October 27th:
Bottom Line: For years, despite generally favorable approval ratings for President Obama, we'd collectively been unhappy with the overall direction of our country. In the early months of the Trump Presidency we'd seen a bit of a shift with a less popular President but a bit more optimistic country generally. At one point earlier, this year we were nearly 20% more optimistic than under the Obama administration but that waned a few months back. Here's the latest.
Where we stood on Inauguration Day:
Right Direction: 30%
Wrong Track: 59%
Net: -29%
Last week:
Right Direction: 32%
Wrong Track: 59%
Net: -27%
And today:
Right Direction: 29%
Wrong Track: 62%
Net: -33%
Change: -4% since Inauguration Day & -6% from a week ago
Last week we were the most optimistic we'd been since July. That gave way to some renewed pessimism this week. It's hard to pinpoint any particular catalyst, though if you've paid close enough attention to the information flow of the Uranium 1 findings and Trump dossier and begin to realize how deep the corruption in our government potentially ran/runs - perhaps that's part of the picture. Nevertheless, these truths remain self-evident:
Economic growth over 3%
Base unemployment rate is the lowest in 16 years
Real unemployment is the best in ten years
Wage growth is the best in ten years
Labor participation is the best in four years
Corporate profits are at all-time highs
The stock market is at all-time highs amid a record run since last November's election
With the budget passed and tax reform a very real/probably likely reality behind it, there's plenty of room for optimism from here...
Until next week...