Trump's shortsighted campaign to claim ownership of the stock market could backfire

President Donald Trump has repeatedly boasted about the stock market's gains during his presidency but he is not actually focusing on it, the White House said Tuesday.

At this afternoon's White House press briefing, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was pressed on Kelly's inflammatory remarks and took the opportunity to pivot to taking shots at Democrats.

For months, President Donald Trump boasted about having steered the US stock markets to record high after record high. In his recent State of the Union address, for example, he spoke of it smashing "one record after the other", notes USA Today, which rounds up several tweets from Trump with a similar sentiment.

"But it seems like Trump is going to live or die by the stock market", said Greg Valliere, chief global strategist at Horizon Investments. Long before signing tax cuts into law last December, he had stirred the fabled animal spirits of Wall Street with the promise of pro-business policies including deregulation as well as lower corporate rates.

Another White House official said the administration is "always concerned" when the market dips, but also noted that the USA economy is fundamentally strong. Everything is coming back.

But what do those numbers really tell us? And it never made sense for Trump to take credit for a stock market that has been gaining steadily since it recovered from the financial collapse of 2008. The result is higher loan costs, which make it more expensive for the government to borrow and more burdensome for Americans who need to take on debt to buy homes or cars or to pay for college.

The Dow average dropped by 1,175 points on Monday, breaking the record for the largest single-day point drop, but as a percentage, the 4.6% decline would not rank it close to the top 20 worst trading days. Trillion-dollar deficits are back.

A wave of fear about inflation and higher interest rates has sent stock prices tumbling and raised concerns about corporate profits, the AP reports.

The stock market's recent slide comes during an relatively solid earnings season that investors have cited for support for equities.

As the President touted his economic agenda in OH on Monday, his face stared out of millions of television screens next to blaring red graphics and yellow numbers whirling like the reels on a slot machine, telling the story of a full-bore stock market plunge.