Wall Street cheers Senate's approval of tax bill; Dow up 200 pts

Wall Street indexes surged on Monday after the U.S. Senate passed its version of a tax code overhaul, bringing the Republicans closer to implementing corporate tax cuts.

Some of the biggest gainers included bank and industrial stocks. Bank of America and JPMorgan rose more than 3 percent, while Caterpillar and Boeing gained about 2 percent.

"This is a positive reaction to the Senate's passage," said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.

The Senate on Saturday approved their version of tax bill in a narrow 51-49 vote. The Senate and the House of Representatives will have to settle differences in their respective versions before it becomes a law.

"That (reconciliation) can be a bit of a challenge because there are differences and the number of approvals to pass it is a little bit higher than it was for the individual two sides of the Congress," said Frederick.

The S&P 500 has risen about 18 percent this year on strong corporate earnings and solid economic growth and also on hopes that Trump's agenda of corporate tax cuts and looser regulations could come through.
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Senate GOP opens health care debate. Now what?

On July 25, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell narrowly managed to keep a Republican effort to reform health care alive. We asked our experts to consider the importance of this procedural vote and what happens next.

Which bill will it be?

Senate Republicans have voted to start debate on a health care bill. The “motion to proceed” – which marks the start of debate on bills in the Senate – reached a majority on the strength of “yes” votes from senators who previously voted “no,” including Rand Paul, Dean Heller and Shelley Moore Capito; John McCain’s quick return to Washington after a brain cancer diagnosis; and a rare tie-breaking vote from Vice President Pence.

While this is a major step in the legislative process in the Senate, it’s important to remember that today’s vote is procedural, not substantive. No bill has passed. All that has happened is that the Senate will begin formal debate.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell depended on a couple of factors to help get the motion passed. First, members are more likely to support their parties on procedural votes than votes directly attached to whether a bill should pass. Second, this particular procedural vote has almost no substance; nobody knows what the Senate bill will look like, so it’s unclear what exactly the Senate just agreed to debate. Since the health care bill is massively unpopular, this lack of substance probably helped get marginal senators on board.
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Meet Mitch McConnell, the president's man in the Senate

Being Senate majority leader isn’t easy. And Mitch McConnell is finding out that having unified government could make it harder still.

As my research shows, U.S. Senate majority leaders represent several constituencies that push and pull in multiple – and usually conflicting – directions.

Balancing constraints

First, the leader is a senator responsible for representing the interests of his state – in McConnell’s case, Kentucky.

Second, like all majority leaders, McConnell is the leader of his party in the Senate, with an obligation to get more Republicans elected to office and to push a legislative agenda that burnishes the party label.

Third, as leader of the Senate, his duty is to sustain the institutional health of that chamber in its function as a counterweight to the whims of the House of Representatives, the ambitions of the executive branch and even the rulings of the judiciary.

Balancing the demands of the office’s various constituencies is sometimes further complicated by another demand on the Senate majority leader – the president, who in times of unified government becomes a fourth constituency to which the leader must answer.

Of course, that’s the position McConnell finds himself in with Donald Trump.

To understand why McConnell must answer to the president, it helps to know some history.
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Donald Trump wishes ex-FBI chief Comey 'luck' ahead of testimony

US President Donald Trump wished his ousted FBI director, James Comey, "luck" ahead of what promises to be a dramatic testimony to Congress on Thursday that could spell more bad news for the White House.

Meeting Republican leaders in the Roosevelt Room, Trump was asked whether he had a message for Comey, whom he summarily dismissed last month in the middle of an investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the US election last year, and the possible collusion of Trump campaign aides.

"I wish him luck" Trump said.

The expelled FBI director will appear on Thursday before the Senate intelligence committee for a hearing sure to be replete with political drama and intrigue.

Comey's testimony will be his first public remarks since he was summarily fired by Trump in early May, and represents a moment of great peril for this already embattled president.

He will face a barrage of questions from lawmakers about the circumstances of his firing, as well as suggestions that Trump tried to get Comey to shelve the investigation.

Most major US television networks plan to carry the event live. Some bars in the US capital are even planning to open early for viewing parties.
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