For the past year, the Dow dropped steadily, from a historic high of over 13,000 in November 2007, to a five year low of under 8200 in October 2008.
After October, the market regained a some ground. The Dow closed at 9625 on Election Day, an increase of over 17% from the market low a week before, but still down over 25% from the high a year before.
The morning after Obama was elected, the market immediately began to
plunge again, dropping steadily for the next two weeks until it
bottomed out at 7552 (an historic post-election drop of over 21%).
I don’t recall hearing a single media pundit even suggest the possibility that the market was reacting negatively to Obama’s election. This despite the fact that polls immediately before the election showed that 90% of corporate CEOs thought that the election of Obama would be bad for the economy.
Corporate CEO’s think electing Obama will be a bad thing. Immediately after Obama is elected, the market plunges. Nope, no possible cause and effect there.
Last week, the market again regained a little ground, from 7552 to 8829, an increase of almost 17% in only a week. The media was ecstatic in crediting this relatively small uptick in the market as The Obama Surge.™
According to George Stephanopoulos on Sunday:
“You got to give him credit for one thing at least: ever since the leak of Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary at 3:00 last Friday, the Dow has gone up 17%, the S&P has gone up 19%. So at least there’s been a vote of confidence in the markets for president-elect Obama”
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=6361258
According to this morning’s USA Today:
“President-elect Barack Obama hasn’t even moved into the White House yet. But Wall Street is already showering him with praise for injecting confidence into the battered psyche of investors and working quickly to hatch a plan meant to jolt the economy out of its worst funk in decades.
A market that two weeks ago was desperate for political leadership and a clear strategy to repair the economy appears to have found it in Obama, who is fast emerging as a decisive economic commander in chief.
Stocks soared last week after Obama moved aggressively to fill the power vacuum until he’s sworn in and demonstrated his commitment to dig the USA out of its economic rut.”
http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/2008-11-30-obama-stock-market-economy_N.ht\m
So today, the Dow plunged again, closing at 8150, a one day drop of almost 8% and a drop of over 15% since election day. The only question is how quickly will the media come up with an explanation for how Bush is responsible for screwing up The Obama Surge.™
Thank you for a great post and accurate data that I will refer to again and again when dealing with liberal idiots.