Not many people thought that running the country was going to be an easy job for President Obama, and based on the Dow's returns since election day, the market doesn't think so either. Below we highlight the performance of the Dow this many days past election day for all Presidential elections since 1900. As shown, the Dow's decline of 17.78% since Obama's election 93 days ago is the index's biggest drop following any election in the last 108 years.
On a sector basis, Financials have fallen the most since November 4th, with a decline of 46.8%. Along with Financials, Industrials and Materials are the only other sectors that have declined more than the overall market. Utilities and Health Care have been the best performing sectors since election day, with declines of less than 3%.
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To gauge just how meaningless this is, I encourage you to look at who had the best return 93 days after his election.
Posted by: Mike | February 05, 2009 at 07:11 PM
I'm long Obama,I hope the people under him don't mess up (Frank an Dodd)and get the budget under control
Posted by: dj | February 06, 2009 at 12:01 AM
Notice that your data also shows how both Calvin Coolage and Herbert Hoover---those who created the economic conditions for the Great Depression--are associated with two of the greatest January increases in the stock market, when they began their terms.
And we know what their presidencies did for us all.
So much for this data having any meaning.
Posted by: K. Blair | February 06, 2009 at 01:50 AM