Dow closes above 20,000 for first time as Trump orders send stocks flying

U.S. equities closed at all-time highs on Wednesday after a series of executive orders from President Donald Trump increased bullish sentiment on Wall Street, while financials outperformed.

The Dow Jones industrial average broke above 20,000 for the first time, rising about 150 points as Boeing, Goldman Sachs and IBM contributed the most gains.
"People are seeing that the administration is carrying through with some of the things they promised," said John Stadtler, head of U.S. Financial Services Industry Practice at PwC. "It looks like long-term capital gains are here to stay."

"Traders have been waiting for more details on infrastructure spending and now they have it in a very clear format," said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets. "There is nothing bigger than this. A break of 20,000 for the Dow stimulates fresh capital which has been waiting for this moment to join this party."

Mar-a-Lago membership fee doubles to $200,000

Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach resort owned by the Trump Organization, has doubled its initiation fee to $200,000 following the election of Donald Trump as president.

People close to the Florida resort said the increase took effect Jan. 1.

A membership at Mar-a-Lago now includes a chance to mingle with the 45th president. Trump plans to use the resort as his occasional "Winter White House." He has visited twice since his election — first for Thanksgiving and then over the Christmas and New Year holidays.

On top of the initiation fee of $200,000 plus tax, members also pay $14,000 a year in annual dues (plus tax).

The 20-acre resort has a main mansion with more 100 rooms, along with private quarters for Trump and his family. It also has a beach club, pools, restaurant, tennis courts and a 20,000-square-foot ballroom that Trump built for events.

Indeed, shortly after the fee hike was revealed, Barack Obama's former top ethics lawyer told MSNBC that the increase is a "not very subtle exploitation of the fact that the club's figurehead is now president of the U.S."

"This type of naked profiteering off of a government office is what I would expect from King Louis XVI or his modern kleptocratic equivalents, not an American president," Norm Eisen said.

While the company has said it will stop any new deals overseas, it will continue to expand in the U.S. And the Mar-a-Lago price hike shows that it can also grow through higher fees and rates.

At a conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday, the chief executive of Trump Hotels said the company has room to expand in the U.S.

"There are 26 major metropolitan areas in the U.S., and we're in five," CEO Eric Danziger said, according to Bloomberg. "I don't see any reason that we couldn't be in all of them eventually."

A spokesman for Trump Hotels told CNBC that the company sees "significant growth opportunity in the United States for both our hotel brands."

Have they calculated the cost of maintaining that wall?
Drug cartels will be drilling holes and digging tunnels under that wall kila siku. Its a vast border. You cannot monitor it 24-7

I beg to differ,the current fence/wall is monitored 24/7 by border patrol and any illegal detection is traced back to the vast desert and the highways not necessarily at the border itself

The tax will make mexican goods uncompetitive. Meaning americans will buy more of american goods, keeping money and jobs in america. Imagine if kenya had slapped huge taxes on chinese dry batteries, it would have meant that kenyans would still be buying locally produced eveready batteries keeping the money and jobs in kenya.