Mnuchin: ‘Thank me for your bank stocks doing better’

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin took credit Monday for rising prices in bank stocks.

“You should all thank me for your bank stocks doing better,” he said at a Beverly Hills conference of the Milken Institute, an economic research group,  according to the Washington Post.

The Treasury secretary argued that banks needed greater clarity and certainty about the rules governing them.

{mosads}The Trump administration is providing banks with that guidance, Mnuchin said, boosting bankers’ confidence. 

Last week, Mnuchin praised Republicans’ rollback of some banking regulations set up Dodd-Frank legislation. 

A Standard & Poor’s index of shares in major financial institutions is up 18.6 percent since President Trump’s election in November.

Shares in major banks are also appreciating with the stock market in general, with the Dow Jones Industrial average gaining 15 percent since that time.

But stocks tumbled briefly Monday after Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg he is considering breaking up major Wall Street banks and could back a law separating consumer and investment banking.

“I’m looking at that right now,” he told Bloomberg News. “There’s some people that want to go back to the old system, right? So we’re going to look at that.”

Trump, Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn have all called for a “21st century” version of the Glass-Steagall Act, which banned combinations of investment and consumer banking but was mostly repealed in 199.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 42 points, before eventually rebounded to earlier prices.