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A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.
That's a paraphrase of a famous Washington saying about runaway government spending in the billions. But our phrase applies to a runaway stock market.
Unless you've been living under a rock in the middle of the ocean, you know that the U.S. stock market has been on fire, with a 22% return last year. And the action so far in 2018 suggests there's no looking back.
The huge run-up in stock prices has brought the total market capitalization of the Russell 3000 Index -which covers 98.5% of the country's market capitalization-to $30 trillion, a "staggering" amount of money, according to a recent report from Bespoke Investment Group. We can't disagree.
Moreover, the run-up in value since President Donald Trump was elected is some $6.6 trillion, in just about 14 months. That's half the entire gain seen under the eight years under President Barack Obama.
Perhaps even more staggering is that Apple (AAPL) alone, valued at $911 billion, constitutes roughly 3% of the nation's total market cap.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
