Trump's Dollar Déjà Vu: Strong Growth Ahead?
LPL Financial's chief technical strategist Adam Turnquist noticed an uncanny chart about the US dollar in January 2025. He overlaid the U.S. Dollar Index's trajectory across Donald Trump's two presidential terms, and what he found was striking symmetry.
The pattern matters now because of where it says the dollar is. After a 13% decline over 269 trading days from its January 2025 peak, the Dollar Index has broken out above resistance near the 100 level, the same stage-three move that followed the Trump first-term bottom in early 2018.
Turnquist thinks the dollar may be entering another sustained climb. He attributes this to American exceptionalism and the dollar's role as a barometer of relative economic strength. When the US economy outperforms other economies, the dollar tends to strengthen.
The Biden counterfactual is also worth noting. Under Joe Biden, the Dollar Index started near 90 in January 2021 and had climbed to roughly 108 by the time he left office in January 2025, a gain of well over 15%. However, this was driven by a Fed-and-inflation story, rate differentials doing the work.