Dow Jones Up, Gun Stocks Down

Since the November 8, 2016 election of Donald Trump, the Dow Jones has surged — but the prices of gun stocks have fallen.

The promise of less regulation and of reductions in taxes have fueled a Dow that is eyeing 20,000 for the first time in history. On the other hand, Trump’s pro-gun presidency is viewed as having taken some of the momentum away from the run on guns that drove 2106 to record highs, as gun owners, new and old, decided they would exercise their rights before a new Democratic administration took them away.

According to the New York Post, shares of American Outdoor Brands, the parent company of Smith & Wesson, fell 26 percent between the election of Trump and January 6, 2017. Shares of Sturm, Ruger & Co., fell 16 percent over the same period of time.

Breitbart News previously reported that November 2016 was the 19th consecutive month of record background checks for retail gun sales. The record streak began in May 2015, when there were more background checks than any May on record. June 2015 then witnessed more checks than any June on record, and so the pattern continued through November 2016. But in December 2016 things leveled off a bit, and there were about 600,000 checks fewer than than necessary to overtake the December record.

The FBI shows 2,771,159 background checks were performed in December 2016. The record for that month is 3,314,594 checks.

So the Dow is up — way up — but gun stocks are lower, and the number of background checks performed the month after Trump’s election was lower as well.

The Post reports Goldman Sachs’ observation that “December background checks suggest long-run trends in the firearm complex remain healthy.” After all, 2,771,159 background checks cannot be ignored. However, Goldman Sachs believes the surges in gun buying and background checks may be gone for a time.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com