Counter to your narrative

Posted on: February 1, 2019 at 13:39:11 CT

Stock performance is in some measure psychologically driven and speculative.

While there was an 183% increase in the S&P 500 during the time between Obama's inauguration (1/20/09) and Trump's (1/20/17), also consider that:

(1) Between the time Obama was elected for the first time (11/4/08) and the time he actually took office (1/20/09), the S&P fell from a daily closing price of 1,005.25 to 805.22. It's equally reasonable to accept that while (a) there wasn't much Obama could do to affect stock prices in the interim, (b) there may have been a speculative component of Obama's impending administration that helped create the nearly 20% drop over two months time.

(2) In the calculations CNN makes, Obama also benefits the other way at the end of his 2nd term: on 11/8/16, before election results were known, the S&P closed at 2,139.56. When Trump took office on 1/20/17, the S&P closed at 2,271.31. Again, while it's reasonable to assume that Trump couldn't affect stock prices in the interim, it's also reasonable to assume that Trump being the next president caused a speculative effect on stock prices.

So, another way of looking at this is:
Upon finding out that Obama would become president, the stock market lost 200 points before he took office.

Upon finding out Trump would succeed Obama, the stock market gained 130ish points.

If you look at things election-to-election, Obama's numbers are:
11/4/08 - 1005.25
11/8/16 - 2139.56
Diff - 1134.31
% - 112.8%