I made the YUGE mistake of pulling out when it dropped to 12000 as I didn't want to lose it all. Wish now I'd have left it alone. Hindsight is 20/20.

Um.......Wrong. Percentages are what matters not points.

White has pretty much nailed it. If anyone really wants to know why the stock market is where it is they will look at policies and actions by central banks across the world. The debate is are the risks they have taken going to be worth it.

White is correct in saying that the market went up with Obama in office not due to what he did but in spite of what he did.
Regulation/strangulation doesn't help any business (except maybe firearms) move ahead.

I didn't start buying stocks on my own through Scottrade until 2009. It has been a great run. I even retired a couple years early because of the cushion it gave me. I don't know if I should thank Bush for putting the market into the tank so that I could get everything so cheap, or Obama for making it climb so fast. I hope trump keeps it going for another year or so.

I didn't know the Fed was mandated to help the stock market?

Well, you're right of course ..they aren't. But in the circumstances they found themselves, it was a 'tool' they didn't even know they had. But NOW they are really in a box of their own making !

Darn capitalist and there government dependency.

LOL

So what everybody seems to be saying is presidents control the stock market. Kind of like a command economy?

Control - no, influence - yes

So when a president signs a bill to bail out failed wall street banks, that is just influencing the market? Or when they whine anytime the Fed wants to raise interest rates to anywhere near normal that there is influence? Whining is probably just influence.

The bond market has a lot more influence on the fed than the stock market does. It's just that the public is a lot more familiar with the stock market. The president and the fed can do whatever they want but I guarantee you the bond market will react one way or the other. Both the president and the fed are well aware of this !

NPR said the DOW was up a little for the week, Nothing about hitting 26000.

I think if a duck was president stock market would do what the stock market does.

With the way the Fed and the federal government has inflated the money supply the last several years, the stock market had no way to go but up.

x2
oh but inflation is tame.... its where we want it to be...yadda yadda
a very small candy bar and a pop is 5 bucks hmmm

Keep buying over time. Whether up or down you still own same number of shares and history shows it's a good return over time.
Diversify, blend, periodically rebalance, whatever your strategy, but keep buying and building portfolios.
Jim

just leave 1929 out