BEST DOW EVER*
Trump share rally biggest since FDR
The Trump stock market rally has legs.
A year after Donald Trump was elected president, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has rallied 28.5 percent — the biggest one-year gain for the popular index once a new commander-in-chief was elected since the Great Depression.
Along the way, the Dow has closed at record highs 82 times — also a record.
Market analysts attribute the Trump rally to an increase in consumer confidence and an expectation among investors that the move by the White House to lower corporate taxes and regulation will lead to an increase in profits.
The Dow closed Tuesday at 23,557.23 — up 5,224.49 points since last Nov. 8.
The last modern president to have come close to that was George H.W. Bush. The Dow, in the year after Bush I was elected, rose 23.3 percent.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1932-33, triggered a oneyear increase of 54.9 percent, the largest of any newly elected president.
“The market right now is following the legislative process on tax reform,” Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial, told The Post.
The Trump rally has also been fueled by strong economic growth in the US and around the globe, according to Krosby.
Investors expect that the tax bill for most companies will be slashed to 20 percent from around 40 percent.
The White House is also pushing for a one-time cut in the tax rate for companies moving back to the US the trillions of dollars held by offshore subsidiaries.
Right now, only the House has released a bill. Senate Republicans are expected to release their version on Thursday, NBC News reported.
Reconciling the two bills by the end of the year could be a tall order since Republicans differ on how to make up for the reduction in government revenue and lawmakers such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) have called for a tax cut for everyone.
“Investors want to see it go through, and they understand it could be a long process,” Krosby said.
The S&P 500, a broader measure of US company performance, climbed 21.1 percent since last Nov. 8 — giving President Trump the thirdbest one-year advance in that index.
President John F. Kennedy, at 26.5 percent, and President George W. Bush, at 22.7 percent, saw larger rallies in the S&P 500.
US gross domestic product, or GDP, has expanded by 3 percent or more in the past two quarters — enabled, in large part, by the 8.6 percent annualized increase in business spending in the third quarter.
In the second quarter, business spending was up 8.8 per- cent on an annualized basis.
Under President Obama, growth in US GDP did not hit 3 percent in any year of his two terms — the first time a president had not achieved that mark.
Still on the President Trump agenda is a massive infrastructure spending plan and a repeal-and-replace of Obamacare.