The potential reopening of the economy is not the only fresh prospect easing stock market tensions. Now that the “Bernie Revolution” has officially halted, stocks are surging upwards as investors warm to the fact that a socialist will not be occupying the White House next February.
On Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) suspended his presidential campaign after former Vice President Joe Biden rebounded from a losing position to overtake him in the primary. Shortly thereafter, his exit from the race yielded positive dividends in the stock market as the Dow gained 700 points.
“U.S. equity markets rallied to session highs Wednesday after Sen. Bernie Sanders announced he was suspending his presidential campaign,” reports Fox Business. “The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 593 points, or 2.62 percent, ahead of the noon hour while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose 2.4 percent and 2.04 percent, respectively. The gains have lifted the S&P 500 out of its bear market, which would officially end with the index closing above 2,684.88.”
Ed Mills, Washington policy strategist at Raymond James, told CNBC that Sanders’ exit has eased tensions over the economic fallout from some of his policy proposals.
“Sanders’ exit removes the tail risk of some of his policies, immediately sets up focus on Biden vs. Trump,” said Mills. “Biden’s policies will get a new scrutiny now [that] he is the presumptive nominee, but the truth of the matter is that the market will be looking towards Washington more to help the economy and much of the assistance matches his platform.”
In other good news, the stock market began to take a positive turn this week as Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, expressed more optimism about the coronavirus and its bending curve.
“If the curve is bending, for the first time, some time-line is coming into focus for restarting at least parts of the economy,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group. “This means investors can start to reduce their best guesses as to how long this recession will last and even if the recession is very deep, if its duration can be shortened and known with some greater clarity, this would tend to raise the value of the stock market.”
As reported by The Daily Wire’s Amanda Prestigiacomo, the White House updated its coronavirus projection models on Wednesday, lowering the death count and hospitalizations by steady margins: from 93,531 deaths to 81,766 deaths to 60,415 deaths.
“Moreover, the projected total hospital bed shortage decreased from 34,654 to 15,852 (a revised number from April 5), and the so-called ‘peak’ of hospital usage was pushed up from April 15 to April 11,” reported Prestigiacomo. “The peak daily death toll was also moved up to April 12, from the revised April 16 date.”
Addressing his supporters on Wednesday, Bernie Sanders, a twice-failed presidential candidate, said that he won the “ideological” battle against Joe Biden.
“Together we have transformed the American consciousness as to what kind of nation we can become,” Sanders said. “Our movement has won the ideological struggle.”
Joe Biden, whose son earned an estimated $50k a month working on the board of the Ukranian energy company Burisma without any prior experience, was regarded by Sanders as a “decent” man.