The Las Vegas attack had nothing to do with companies' earnings and, therefore, did not hurt the stock market, author and economist Ben Stein said Tuesday.
During an appearance on Fox Business Network's "Neil Cavuto Coast to Coast," Stein explained why Sunday night's attack at a country concert, which resulted in 59 deaths and more than 500 injuries, had virtually no impact on Wall Street.
"Markets have to do with interest rates in the amount of money being earned in corporate profits, and a psychopathic nut, villain, evil person has nothing to do with that whatsoever," Stein said.
"It's incredibly, unbelievably sad how many people died or were injured, how many families are broken up and tortured by this. But it … has nothing to do with dividends, earnings before interest rates, or returns on comparable investments."
Cavuto then asked if the market would have felt an impact if the incident was a "9/11-type attack," rather than one involving a lone gunman firing from sniper's nests in two hotel room windows.
"I don't think so," Stein said. "This is an attack, which is a terrible, terrible human tragedy, unbelievably terrible, but in terms of the overall economy and overall earnings, it has absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever. Nothing."
Shares of Las Vegas casino operators fell by as much as 5 percent on Monday after the attack, but the market overall has recorded gains this week.
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