Rally to records back on | Do deficits matter? | Deals a'plenty

MON, NOV 25, 2019

EVENING BRIEF

AS OF MON, NOV 25, 2019 • 04:01 ET

DJIA		28065.32
		+0.68%	+189.70

S&P 500		3133.56
		+0.75%	+23.27

NASDAQ		8632.49
		+1.32%	+112.60

Most Active

DOW
NAME	LAST	CHG	%CHG
PFE	38.67	+0.34	+0.89%
MSFT	151.23	+1.64	+1.10%
AAPL	266.37	+4.59	+1.75%

S&P 500
NAME	LAST	CHG	%CHG
GE	11.58	+0.03	+0.26%
BAC	33.47	+0.29	+0.87%
AMD	39.79	+0.64	+1.63%

NASDAQ
NAME	LAST	CHG	%CHG
AMD	39.79	+0.64	+1.63%
CMCSA	43.35	-1.45	-3.24%
SIRI	6.85	+0.04	+0.66%

EDITOR'S NOTE

Why worry about trillion-dollar deficits and the national debt topping $23 trillion when we can just print more money?

Well, because it's the road to economic ruin.

You'd think a classic economics 101 course would be enough to support this idea, but these days it takes a report from Federal Reserve economists to back it up. That's because we now have "Modern Monetary Theory," which purports that deficits don't matter as long as inflation and interest rates remain low and the economy keeps growing. History, however, shows this idea has led to crippling hyperinflation, writes CNBC's Jeff Cox.

Fiscal 2019's deficit was nearly $1 trillion, but the economy continued growing, even if at an increasingly slower pace, and markets keep hitting new highs.

Stocks reached records again on Monday amid a slew of announced deals: LVMH is buying Tiffany and a Swiss ticket vendor is purchasing Stubhub from eBay and most notably, Charles Schwab is buying TD Ameritrade.

Schwab and Ameritrade are the two biggest publicly traded discount brokers and their combination will create a brokerage giant with more than $5 trillion in client assets, writes CNBC's Maggie Fitzgerald.

Fears of a slowing economy have been cast aside. Many market observers are putting out bullish forecasts for 2020. Of course, much depends on the outcome of the election. A Goldman Sachs analysis shows the S&P performs best when there's a divided government, and gridlock, so that little lawmaking gets in the way of a good bull run.

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