Axios

January 28, 2009

January 28, 2017

The cover of Barron's is "Next Stop: Dow 30,000," with Gene Epstein and Jack Hough writing: "History suggests that this aging bull market can live on. … In fact, if … Trump can avoid stumbling into a trade war—or a real war—there's no reason the Dow Jones Industrial Average can't exceed 30,000 by the year 2025."

• The bullish case: "If Trump can succeed in reducing regulation and lowering corporate taxes, stocks should surge further this year. An additional 5% or even 10% gain in 2017 wouldn't be surprising."
• The bearish case: "Border-adjusted taxes that reward exporters and pinch importers could backfire, as well, raising prices and damping growth. And a rising dollar could cut into U.S. earnings growth."

Related: The Dow Jones average since 1985, visualized.

Former Obama aides Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer discuss Trump's ABC interview with David Muir on their podcast, Pod Save America. The two go back-and-forth on whether Trump is forcing journalists to break from conventional interview techniques. One interesting snippet:

"[I] wonder if there are new rules for Trump that journalists just have to sort of think outside the box and be like well, if I didn't get to six or seven newsy topics in this interview because I was pressing him to, you know, explain what the hell he means by voter fraud that doesn't exists for 10, 15 minutes, then I'm going to do it." — Jon Favreau.

Several news outlets yesterday picked up on an SEC filing for WndrCo, the new investment group put together by former DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. The filing revealed that WndrCo had raised just shy of $600 million.

Some additional notes, after speaking to people familiar with the situation:

• This is only a first close. Expect the final number to be closer to $750 million. Original plans were to target $500 million, but commitments came in fast and furious over the past several weeks (particularly from China).
• Katzenberg is the big name, but he's only one of three partners in WndrCo. The others are Ann Daly, former president of DreamWorks Animation, and Sujay Jaswa, the former Dropbox CFO who also spent time at venture firm NEA. '
• Others involved on a full-time basis (but not listed on the Form D) include Anthony Saleh (best known as the music manager who got Nas into the VC world), ChenLi Wang (ex-head of product management at Dropbox), finance director Nilesh Vashee (ex-Virgin America/Yale Investment Office). Part-time advisors include Jason Hirschhorn and Fazal Merchant.
• The actual investment strategy has moved around a lot, which means most folks are really betting on the team more than the plan. A Fortune profile of Katzenberg from last fall suggested that WndrCo is likely to follow a flexible, model in the vein of IAC (Katzenberg began his career working for IAC's Barry Diller), and that may still be the best way to think about it.

Through a spokesperson, WndrCo declined to comment.

Trump gave another hour-long interview last night, this time with Fox News' Sean Hannity. Some highlights:

• On "Saturday Night Live": "It's a failing show; it's not funny. Alec Baldwin's a disaster. He's terrible on the show. And by the way: I don't mind some humor. But it's terrible."
• Giving a tour of the Oval: "And look at my desk: Papers! You don't see presidents with papers on that desk"
• On using Reagan's desk: "[Y]ou can pick. They have like seven desks."
• On the White House phones: "I have great phones, I have phones -- let me tell you. The technology that we have in this country is incredible. Unfortunately perhaps we don't use it.
• On the president in his lifetime he admires most: "Well, I like Reagan. I didn't like him on trade. But other than trade, I liked him very much and he was OK on trade. But not great."
• On the letter Obama left him: "What amazed me is that I was vicious to him in statements, he was vicious to me in statements, and here we are getting along, we're riding up Pennsylvania Avenue talk -- we don't even mention it. I guess that's the world of politics."
• On how this whole experience has changed him: "I don't think I've had the time to be changed because I'm cutting the prices of airplanes, I'm cutting the prices of army tanks."
• Trump's last words in the interview: "The ratings tonight are going to be through the roof."