President Donald Trump rang the opening bells for the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq from the Oval Office on Monday in a highly symbolic move.
The act underscored how Trump has increasingly staked his political reputation on the performance of financial markets heading into the midterm elections.
With inflation weighing heavily on his approval ratings, Trump has pushed Americans to focus on their 401(k) investments and credit his policies for any market gains.
“It’s all going well — the stock market is setting records virtually every day,” Trump told reporters last week before boarding Air Force One.
After formally launching the start of trading, Trump added: “It’s going to go up — I think the market’s going to go through the roof.”
Despite Trump’s market optimism, only 33% of U.S. adults approve of his economic leadership, according to a June survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The Oval Office bell-ringing ceremony was tied to the launch of Trump Accounts, a new investment vehicle for children created under the Republicans’ sweeping 2025 tax and spending cuts bill.
Trump Accounts are designed to give children exposure to stock indexes, with the government seeding the investments alongside contributions from prominent companies and billionaires.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been among the most vocal champions of the accounts, stressing that tens of millions of Americans currently have no direct exposure to equities.
Bessent declared before the bell ringing that “38% of American families do not have any exposure to our great equity markets,” highlighting the gap the accounts are intended to close.
He had previously framed the ambition more starkly, saying last December: “Today, 38% of American adults do not own stocks. But with Trump Accounts, over time, we can get that number down to zero.”
The S&P 500 posted gains of 17.9% in 2025, though that followed returns of 25% in 2024 and 26.3% in 2023 during Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency, and the benchmark index has risen roughly 10% so far this year.
Just as inflation eroded public support for Biden, Trump has seen his own approval ratings suffer from rising prices, despite winning the 2024 election on a promise to reduce costs.
His administration’s tariffs and the outbreak of conflict with Iran have added fresh inflationary pressures, pushing the consumer price index up 4.2% over the past 12 months, compared with 3% when Trump began his second term in January 2025.
Trump has acknowledged with some humour that children have missed out on recent stock market gains due to the delays in getting the Trump Accounts programme fully launched and operational.