Trump surprised Iran conflict didn’t tank stocks by 20%, send oil to $200

US President Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump expressed his surprise at the resilience and stability of the stock market following the outbreak of conflict with Iran, as well as oil prices, which he believes have not risen significantly. He noted that he initially expected market disruptions to be far more severe.

"The S&P is where it was when we started this whole thing. I thought it would be down 20%, or down a very substantial amount,"Trump told CNBC hosts today, April 21.

"The fact is that we took this little journey—and if you had told me that the Dow is almost—I'm looking at your screen—literally back to 50,000 points, and that oil is at $90 as opposed to $200, I would be frankly surprised," Trump remarked.

He continued, “Even when it was down more a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised—I thought it would be down much more, and I thought oil would be much higher. And I’m very happy to say that it wasn’t.”