Coincidence or Cause -- A Look at Market Performance on Days When Bernanke Speaks

Ever feel like the market is always down when Ben Bernanke is speaking?  We gathered all of Bernanke's testimony and speeches from the Fed's website and calculated how the S&P 500 has performed on these days.  While it's probably (wink wink) more coincidence than cause, the average performance of the S&P 500 on these days has been -0.12%.  The last six days that we have heard from Bernanke publicly have seen the S&P 500 decline all six times for an average loss of 1.31%.  The next time Bernanke is speaking publicly, the market needs to turn the TV off!