Saturday, June 21, 2008

Does the stock market perform better under Democrats or Republicans?


"According to Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at Standard & Poor's Equity Research, between 1945 and 2007 the S&P 500 rose 10.7 percent annually when Democrats occupied the White House, compared with a 7.6 percent annual increase under Republicans."
http://www.slate.com/id/2192001?nav=wp

and

In an interesting twist on spin, in 2005, the USA Today ran a story titled "Democrats or Republicans? Just the facts" The column answered the question: "Has the stock market been better, on average, when a Republican or Democrat has been in office? Do you have a chart that shows this?" The stats clearly showed that from 1901-2004, stocks rose an average of 13.3% per year under Democratic presidents, and 6.9% under Republican presidents. http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/krantz/2005-12-02-presidents_x.htm

but

The story was changed, under the SAME BYLINE two years later. While the new headline said "Are Democrats or Republicans better for the stock market?", the actual question now answered was "Do stocks perform better when a Democrat or Republican is elected president?" That's some slick rewording indeed. The new answer: "the stock market has gained, on average, 3.1% during election years that a Democrat was elected and 8.8% in years a Republican was elected." ... but, of course, that's just during the actual election years, with absolutely no mention of the stock market average over the entire tenure of R vs. D administrations, a stat which clearly shows the stock market performs better under Democrats!!!!
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/krantz/2007-07-12-democrats-republicans_N.htm

So much for a liberal media bias.