Trump Sold Early, Made $200 Million

Real estate mogul Donald Trump said today that he pulled out of the stock market completely over the last four weeks, at a profit of about $200 million, and one reason was government moves to bolster the dollar.

In the wake of Monday’s market plunge, Trump disclosed that he had sold off his $500 million worth of holdings in Allegis, Holiday, Bally and various other companies.

He advised that anyone who was “lucky enough to escape the catastrophe of yesterday should remain where he is--stay in cash for a while, see where the world is going.”

“The advice on a larger scale is for this country to get smart and to make its so-called allies pay for what they’re getting from us,” he said in a telephone interview.

Trump referred to the cost of defending “some of the greatest money machines ever built, such as Japan, Saudi Arabia.”

He said the Federal Reserve was foolish to bolster the dollar at a time when Japan was finally finding it harder to compete with American companies.

“That was one of the tip-offs” to get out of the market, he said. “I think the dollar should go down in value another 20% from what it was a couple of days ago, not up. The dollar should go down so that our great companies in this country, Caterpillar Tractor, etc., can for the first time in 10 years compete with the Japanese.”