preview.tinyurl.com/4wzjws -> blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2008/10/08/the-oval-office-and-the-dow-industrials/
Oil > October 8, 2008, 12:31 pm The Oval Office and the Dow Industrials Posted by MarketBeat Staff Bush Annelena Lobb reports: By the time the next president takes office, President George W Bush may have earned the dubious honor of being the first president to see the Dow Jones Industrial Average fall, on a percentage basis, during his two terms of service, in almost 90 years. Before Mr Bush, the last complete two-term presidency to coincide with a percentage decline in the Dow was that of Woodrow Wilson. From March 4, 1913, to March 4, 1921, the Dow fell 694%. There was a tough recession in the aftermath of World War I, which overlapped with the end of the Wilson years, noted financial historian Robert Wright, author of "One Nation Under Debt" and clinical associate professor of economics at New York University. The New York Stock Exchange was also closed for several months in 1914, the year in which the war began.
"They may have feared they weren't as liquid as they'd hoped." To be sure, it isn't exactly a straight line from the Oval Office to the Dow industrials. But presidential policy decisions often affect what happens in the stock market. That said, it also doesn't necessarily take two terms in office to see serious damage. During the single-term presidency of Herbert Hoover, the Dow saw a whopping drop of almost 83%. The Hoover years included the famous 1929 stock market crash, as well as some of the worst years of the Great Depression. FDR Franklin Roosevelt was elected to four terms, but didn't serve out all of the last one. FDR saw a return of about 194% on the Dow, from his first days in office, in March of 1933, to his final days in office in April of 1945. The Roosevelt presidency still included several Depression years, and a sharp, shortish recession that began in 1937, sometimes called the Roosevelt Recession. Even if the Roosevelt presidency is treated as two discrete, two-term periods, the first ending on the day of his third inaugural address in 1941, both stretches show percentage gains for the Dow, on the whole. Nixon Richard Nixon was elected to two terms, and almost fits the profile of a two-term percentage decliner - but he didn't finish both terms.
had some wacky economic policies, specifically price controls, most infamously on gasoline, and wage controls," Mr Wright said. Those cramped business, and in turn, hurt stocks, he said. The Dow was basically flat during the Carter Administration, though it had gained considerably during the Ford presidency before that, and would roar through the Reagan, George HW Bush, and Clinton Administrations afterward, logging a gain of almost 227% during the zippy Clinton years, and the Internet bubble. Even so, Clinton was no match for Calvin Coolidge, who led the country through much of the Roaring Twenties.
com/numbersguy/the-day-stocks-rose-but-the-dow-p lunged-423/ Also, WWI made a lot of money for a lot of people, even with the 1919-1921 drop. Unfortunately for the DJIA is wasn't added to the index until 1928.
MarketBeat, led by Wall Street Journal Online writer David Gaffen, looks under the hood of Wall Street each day, finding market-moving news and analyzing interesting trends and numbers. The blog is updated several times daily with contributions from reporters at The Wall Street Journal and the Online Journal and includes noteworthy commentary from the best blogs and research notes.
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