Stocks did better in Obamas first year than in Trumps
Rick Newman, Columnist, Yahoo News
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stocks-better-obamas-first-year-trumps-172431950.html
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The stock market has rallied during Donald Trump’s presidency, with the S&P 500 up nearly 24% during Trump’s first year in office. But here’s a surprise: It did even better during President Obama’s first year, rising 35.3%.
Presidents are quick to take credit when the stock market and the broader economy perform well under their watch. Trump has tweeted many times about the booming stock market of the past year, the strong job market and a number of other economic gains. Obama was a more circumspect tweeter, but he, too, touted economic gains during his administration, usually in speeches.
Here’s the thing, though: Presidential policies have a lot less to do with financial markets and the underlying economy than politicians and their supporters like to think. The same goes for downturns in the economy. An examination of the circumstances during the first years of both the Obama and Trump administrations bears that out.
Obama, of course, took office in the midst of a financial crash and near-depression. His stock-market numbers look good because stocks were most of the way through a crash when he took office, soon to rebound. The total decline in the S&P 500 from the peak in 2007 to the trough in 2009 was 56%. Stocks had already fallen 46% by the time Obama took office. So there was only a modest drop left on Inauguration day in January 2009. Stocks bottomed out less than two months later, and began a climb that continues to this day.
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