Trump sold stocks before Black Monday crash in 1987

Fred
Trump, boxing promoter Don King, and Donald Trump in December
1987
AP Images

• Black Monday, October 19, 1987 was the day of the
  largest one day stock market drop in history.
• Then-real estate investor Donald Trump told the Wall
  Street Journal the next day that he had dumped all his stock in
  the preceding months before the crash.
• “I think the market is going to go down further, there
  are just too many things wrong with the country,” Trump
  said.

On Monday, October 19, 1987 the stock market
was rocked by the worst one-day fall in history with the Dow
Jones industrial average falling 508 points, or 22.7%.

Luckily, now-President, then-real estate investor Donald Trump
claimed to have sold all of his stock before the downfall of the
market

“They told you so!”
crowed the lede of a Wall Street Journal article the day
after the crash, October 20.

“I sold all my stock over the last month,” Trump told the
Journal.

Trump also predicted terrible things ahead for the market.

“I think the market is going to go down further, there are just
too many things wrong with the country,” Trump said.

The market took roughly a year and a half to make up the
losses from the crash. After that recovery, however, stocks
entered the
longest bull market in the post-World War II era. Friday
marks the 31st anniversary of the mega-sell off and while the Dow
set records for the largest drops by raw points earlier this
year, Black Monday’s record still stands for largest percent
drop.

Fittingly given his priorities in office, Trump pointed to the US
trade deficit as a source of major concern. During his time in
office, Trump has repeatedly raised concerns over the trade
situation of the US.

“The US cannot afford to lose $200 billion a year while Japan and
Saudi Arabia are making tremendous profit and the US is paying
totally for their defense,” Trump said.

Interestingly, as opposed to Trump’s present-day thinking about
trade, the real estate mogul Trump advocated for decreasing trade
barriers with Japan. As president, Trump has
sought to increase barriers to trade in order to protect
American profits and is now engaged in a
protracted trade war with the Chinese over similar issues.

One of the largest goals of Trump’s new trade war and the tariffs
he is using to fight that battle is the reduction of the US trade
deficit. So fat the
attempts to shrink the deficit have been unsuccessful.