Trump Rings NY Stock Exchange Opening Bell for 1st Time

President-elect Donald Trump rang the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) opening bell on Dec. 12 for the first time.

Vice President-elect JD Vance, incoming first lady Melania Trump, NYSE President Lynn Martin, and Trump’s two daughters, Ivanka and Tiffany, flanked him. He also looked upon various incoming administration officials and a crowd of prominent business leaders, including Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.

President Ronald Reagan was the last president to ring the bell at the world’s largest stock exchange. The occasion, which represents the start or close of the trading day, is considered an honor and typically reserved for executives filing an initial public offering or celebrities and politicians.

Before the event, the president-elect held a brief news conference, during which he acknowledged being named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” following his 2024 presidential victory. This is the second time he has received the publication’s title.

“This is an honor, a tremendous honor. I brought some of our compatriots along with us. They’re going to do a beautiful job for you for the next four years, and it’s really been something very special,” Trump said, surrounded by incoming administration officials Scott Bessent, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and others.

“Time Magazine, getting this honor for the second time, I think I like it better this time, actually.”

‘A Tremendous Run’

He promised that the United States would “have a tremendous run” but said his administration would have to “straighten out some big problems in the world,” referring to the Ukraine–Russia conflict and the situation in the Middle East.

Related Stories

12/12/2024

12/12/2024

Looking ahead, Trump said he is confident that the economy will be robust in his second term in the White House.

The president-elect repeated his promise to lower the corporate tax rate to 15 percent if companies produce their products in the United States. Otherwise, it would remain at the current 21 percent.

He said these plans would be enough to bring American companies back to the country and encourage current businesses to stay.

“For those that are running the big companies, those great, big, beautiful companies, nobody’s going to be leaving us. You’re going to be coming back. You’re going to be bringing it back to the United States. We are incentivizing everybody to come back to the United States,” he said.

Another reason companies will want to invest in the United States is the country’s vast oil and gas reserves, he said, repeating his plan to expand drilling and production. This, Trump said, will help lower inflation, bring down food prices, and ensure the public can afford groceries.

The United States currently produces more than 13 million barrels per day of crude oil, and prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange currently trade at around $70 per barrel.

Food inflation has been a significant issue over the past few years. Since January 2021, food costs have soared 23 percent cumulatively.

“We’re going to take care of our people, and we’re going to do things that nobody ever thought even were possible, but we’re going to have an economy the likes of which nobody’s ever seen before,” he said.

Speaking to CNBC host Jim Cramer after the opening bell chimed, Trump championed cryptocurrency and endorsed a bitcoin reserve similar to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

“We’re going to do something great with crypto because we don’t want China or anybody else. Others are embracing it, and we want to be ahead. We’re going to be ahead of AI,” he said.

The United States needs to produce enormous amounts of electricity to achieve these aims, Trump noted.

“We need more than twice what we already have for a specific industry, but we’re going to be able to do it,” he said.

Bessent, Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Treasury, also spoke to CNBC’s Cramer, stating that the incoming administration will benefit Wall Street and Main Street.

“I think we’re going to see under President Trump [that] Wall Street can win and Main Street can win, just like we did in Trump 1.0. Everybody can do great,” Bessent said.