My guest tonight is the anchor
of Countdown to the Closing Bell on Fox Business Network.
Please welcome Liz Claman!
-♪ ♪ -(cheering and applause)
-Welcome to the show. -Thank you so much.
So, I have one simple question for you, buy or sell?
(laughs) Buy low,
sell high!
-Have you guys ever heard that? -How do you know it's high?
Yeah, but how-how do we know if it's high?
Right now, the market is in such a crazy place.
I mean, like, it's up and it's down and it's super down,
and they say it's a record down but we shouldn't panic.
-Mm-hmm. -If we shouldn't panic and it's normal,
why doesn't it always happen?
Well, that's exactly the point, right?
It doesn't always happen and what we're seeing yesterday,
could it have been the ultimate opportunity to have bought?
But, again, I will remind everybody,
the stock market is a little bit of a casino, right?
So you should really only play
with money that you can afford to lose.
Who can afford to lose money? Nobody, right?
I mean, you don't want to do that.
So you've just got to sit there and watch
and figure out that you're never gonna catch the top.
-Right. -You're never gonna catch the bottom.
So if you can get sort of around the top or the bottom
when it comes to selling at the top and picking up
at the bottom, that would be nice.
You are someone who is steeped
in the stock market and-and the economy.
But what's interesting is, a lot of people,
I guess because of President Trump,
have now started conflating the economy
with the stock market.
So, oftentimes, President Trump will come in and go,
"The stock market is doing well,
which means the economy is doing well."
Is the stock market the same thing as the economy?
Absolutely not, and that is a perfect, perfect example
of why they are not the same thing.
Certainly a good economy can stabilize the stock market.
-Right. -But everybody would argue
that when President Obama had taken over, and, uh,
in 2009, we saw the market plummet all the way
-from the financial crisis, as you know. -Right.
Guess what? From that point, all the way through eight years,
-the stock market jumped... -Right.
...by, at least for the Dow, 150 points, 160 points.
The Nasdaq jumped 260-plus percent.
I'm talking about percentage points.
-This is huge. -Right.
And, uh, everyone would argue that the economy...
Remember, everybody used to say,
"Oh, the economy is so weak, it's slogging along, and..."
Oh, you know, the people who didn't like President Obama
said it was his fault.
People who loved him said, "Don't worry."
Guess what? The stock market was going like this.
So, in essence, if you look at it
almost like a relay in the Olympics,
-'cause you're talking about... -Yes, yes, yes.
I love that.
Um, you could argue that President Obama had the baton,
he's running, he hands it to President Trump,
who's continued to run with it.
-He's running? -They're on the...
(laughter)
He's schlepping a little bit.
I feel like Obama handed it to him,
and he's in a golf cart, and he driving, and he's keeping...
That makes sense. So, so, it is a trend.
That... but that's... that's what's interesting about this,
is, you see some people...
I mean, like, you saw Sean Hannity, for instance, saying,
"Uh, no, the crash is because of Obama."
Because he didn't raise interest rates,
I guess, when he should have,
but the market going up is because of Trump.
Is it somebody's credit, or is it somebody's blame,
or is the stock market really doing its own thing?
Well, let's get something straight.
The president does not raise interest rates.
Something called the Federal Reserve--
they're the people who come together and decide
what short-term interest rates should be and should they go up.
-Right. -Well, everybody kept them extremely low
because we were in a crisis.
We're not anymore.
If you want somebody to blame,
blame Bill Belichick.
I mean, you know, I was sitting there thinking, you know,
-"Who-who should we...?" -There are some people who are like,
-"Yeah, we'll blame him. We'll blame him." -Yeah, exactly.
"Yeah, we hate the Patriots. We'll blame him."
You know, who do we blame? Do we blame the Fed?
Do we blame President Obama?
Do we blame, uh, you know,
-President Trump talking up the stock market? -Right, right.
There is one thing for sure.
Since Election Day,
the Dow Jones Industrials has enjoyed 90 record closes.
Nine-zero. That's amazing.
We give credit where credit is due, right?
-Right. -This is not a bad thing.
Uh, but you also have to give credit to the stabilization
of President Obama and, so, therefore,
the big theme here is,
as much as they would hate to believe this,
Trump and Obama are on the same team.
If you look at... if you look at the numbers alone, right,
it looks scary in a day.
It's like, you know, a thousand points or whatever,
-and they go like, "This is good, this is bad." -Yeah.
But it looks like the markets have been doing the same thing
-around the world. -Mm-hmm.
Right, so, if-if Donald Trump takes credit
for what's happening in America, how do you explain the fact
that markets worldwide have been going up?
Is this not just a trend in terms of stock markets?
It is, it is, and things are better in America right now.
We did start to see a pickup in growth.
We see a little bit more confidence.
-Right. -The stock market has done well.
People's 401ks. I know a lot of you out there have them, right?
-Who's got a 401k? Right. -(applause)
They've continued to, uh, reflate
-after the financial crisis in 2009. -Right.
That is a very good thing, but you should all expect
that they will fall at a certain point,
-because we see what are called "corrections." -Right.
That means you're up at this... this unbelievable record high,
and then it falls ten percent,
-and it feels horrible at the time. -Uh-huh.
You need a Xanax drip, but calm down.
It happens.
In fact, corrections tend to happen once every year.
They just haven't happened in the last year.
Oh, that's fantastic.
So if I understand this correctly, basically,
you've got to think of a stock market on a high
like a night out partying. You're getting drunk.
At some point, you're gonna get too drunk,
and then, a correction has to occur,
-and that's the hangover. -Yeah.
And then you go like, "All right,
-maybe I should slow down." -Yeah.
And then you start it all over again.
And then you get a Mai Tai juice in the morning.
-Yeah. -And then you go to your juice cleanse
and make sure there's a little Mai Tai in it, and you're fine.
-I like this. -And, uh, this is...
This is difficult, but you know, when you talk
about exactly how to understand all of this,
I mean, some of your viewers are millennials,
and they come in, and they say,
"Well, should I be in the-the stock market?
Should I do a 401k?"
Well, yeah, because would you rather bet
on great American companies,
or would you just rather hide your money under a mattress?
I'm gonna say mattress? Am I... am I right?
(laughter)
I'm just saying. Thank you so much for being on the show.
-It is great to be here, Trevor. -It's been great having you.
Countdown to the Closing Bell airs weekdays at 3:00 p.m.
on the Fox Business Network. Liz Claman, everybody.