Like I said before, I vote for social – not economic – issues.
The reason is that administrations have relatively little effect on our money.
It’s a great talking point – i.e. “It’s the economy, stupid!” – but presidents don’t do much for the economy – good or bad.
Here’s my second (of 3) data points…
Mr. Market Doesn’t Care
Mr. Market and the Fed share an apartment but don’t care much about their neighbor in the White House.
Below is more color-by-numbers for S&P 500 returns broken down by administration. (Blue=Democrat, Red=Republican)
The green pentagon is the average return over the administration’s total time in office.
Dubya had lousy timing by bookending his term with two bursting bubbles, but I’m not sure we can blame him for either.
Feel free to view the data through your red or blue-colored glasses.
But if you ask me the data tells me that Mr. Market doesn’t care much about the blowhard down the street.
