Ya gotta love the market nuts who create lists for everything. Like how stocks perform after significant political events such as the presidential State of the Union addresses.
No matter how you felt about President Obama’s speech last night, the stock markets didn’t respond positively to it today. Who knows if one had anything to do with the other—they really didn’t—concerns about the price of a barrel of oil, what’s going on in China, our slowing economy and a not-so-hot earnings season—are more realistic reasons for the drop. Nonetheless, President Obama’s last SOTU resulted in some snarky stock market moves today.
While prices this morning started out cheery enough, it didn’t take long for the Dow Jones Industrial Average to take a deep dive in a southern direction: It closed down 2.21 percent for the day. The other indices were off as well. But we’re only talking DJIA numbers in this blog.
Based on WSJ Market Data and a Marketwatch.com story titled, “Here’s how the stock market has reacted to State of the Union speeches” by Robert Schroeder, here’s what I found interesting:
- Down by 2.21 percent is a lot. But President Obama isn’t the only Democrat to rack up such a significant down figure. When Bill Clinton was president, the DJIA was down 2.62 percent the day after his SOTU in 2000. That, btw, is the most carnage done the day after for either Democrat or Republican president over the past 50-some years.
- Between 1961 and 2016 we’ve had 10 different presidents and listened to 57 different SOTU speeches. The breakdown looks like this:
- -Two gave only three SOTU addresses each—President Kennedy and President Ford.
- -Two gave four SOTU’s each, President’s Carter and George H. W. Bush.
- -President Richard Nixon gave five SOTU speeches.
- -President Lyndon B. Johnson gave six SOTUs.
- -And four have given eight SOTU addresses each. They include President’s Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.
- The best day after return on the DJIA happened under President George H.W. Bush’s tenure when the Dow closed up 1.90 percent.
Find more of the particulars at:
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allaboutfundsdotcom 