Donald Trump’s decision to wage a Twitter attack on Nordstrom on Wednesday appears to have been a massive failure as the company’s stocks took a grand total of four minutes to recover from the .5 percent dip immediately following his tweet – and they closed the day with a gain of more than 4 percent.
While Trump was clearly hoping to do some damage to a company that dropped his daughter’s brand, he may have had the unintended consequence of doing them a favor.
In other words, being on the receiving end of Trump’s Twitter tantrums is apparently good for business.
Tweet:
In today’s battle of Trump vs @Nordstrom, Nordstrom is the overwhelming winner: shares up nearly 5% at the closing bell 🏆 pic.twitter.com/hne3FFpv8j
— Joshua Green (@JoshuaGreen) February 8, 2017
It’s clear that some companies – after perhaps showing an initial reluctance to get on the bad side of the erratic, Twitter-happy president – are beginning to realize that the American people, also known as consumers, don’t like Trump.
The latest Gallup poll shows that a majority – 52 percent – of Americans do not approve of the job he’s done over the past several weeks. As I noted yesterday, 60 percent don’t even think he’s “level-headed” enough to hold the office.
Thus, resisting Trump, as Nordstrom and other companies are doing, isn’t just consistent with how voters feel toward the president – it’s a good business decision, too.
If companies want to see their financial prospects improve, they shouldn’t throw money at expensive advertising. All they need to do is stand up to Donald Trump.