Donald Trump is expected to be named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” and to celebrate the unveiling of the cover, the president-elect will ring the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday morning, Politico reported Wednesday citing three people familiar.
Trump is expected to ring the opening bell at NYSE, the ceremonial start of the day’s trading, according to four people with knowledge of his plans.
It will be a notable moment of recognition for Trump, a born-and-bred New Yorker who gave up living full time in his namesake Trump Tower in Manhattan and moved to Florida. The U.S. stock market soared after Trump won the 2024 election in part by seizing on Americans’ worries over the economy.
The ringing of the bell is a powerful symbol of U.S. capitalism — and a good New York photo opportunity at that. According to the NYSE’s calendar, Trump has never done it before.
After the Nov. 5 election, the S&P 500 rallied 2.5% for its best day in nearly two years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 1,508 points, or 3.6%, while the Nasdaq composite jumped 3%. All three indexes topped records they had set in recent weeks.
In 1985, Ronald Reagan became the first sitting U.S. president to ring the bell.
“With tax reform and budget control, our economy will be free to expand to its full potential, driving the bears back into permanent hibernation,” Reagan said at the time. “We’re going to turn the bull loose.”
