Analysis: Stock Returns Are Significantly Higher When A Democrat Is President

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/02/28/433530/stocks-better-democratic-president/

By Pat Garofalo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Feb 28, 2012 at 10:10 am

The stock market has been flirting with 13,000 for days, a level at which it has not closed since 2008. As ThinkProgress’ Scott Keyes reported, Republicans have been at pains to explain why President Obama deserves no credit for the Dow’s rebound (even though the GOP was quite willing to blame Obama when the Dow tanked in 2008 and 2009).

But as it turns out, Obama is not the only Democratic President under whom the stock market has done well for investors. A Bloomberg Government report shows that since the 1960′s, stocks have done significantly better under Democratic administrations than under Republican ones:

The BGOV Barometer shows that, over the five decades since John F. Kennedy was inaugurated, $1,000 invested in a hypothetical fund that tracks the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) only when Democrats are in the White House would have been worth $10,920 at the close of trading yesterday.

That’s more than nine times the dollar return an investor would have realized from following a similar strategy during Republican administrations. A $1,000 stake invested in a fund that followed the S&P 500 under Republican presidents, starting with Richard Nixon, would have grown to $2,087 on the day George W. Bush left office.

Even eliminating the best stock performance under a Democrat, which occurred under President Clinton, and the worst under a Republican, which was under President George W. Bush, the Democrats still come out ahead.


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