WSJ: "Divided Government is Best for the Market"
...since 1948, the stock market has done better under Democratic presidents (15.6%) than Republican ones (11.1%).
But it's not so simple... First, not all Democrats act like Democrats, and not all Republicans act like Republicans. John F. Kennedy, for example, was an enthusiastic supply-side tax cutter, and George H.W. Bush raised taxes. Bill Clinton promoted free trade, and Richard Nixon imposed wage and price controls.
If you assign those four presidents to the opposite party based on that -- make the two Democrats into Republicans and the two Republicans into Democrats -- the numbers completely reverse. Now stocks average 14.7% under Republicans and only 10.5% under Democrats.
In fact, it turns out that if you do just one single switch -- if you make Richard Nixon into a Democrat -- it's enough to reverse the numbers."
Loyal Bluematter. readers will of course remember that this type of analysis was pioneered here, in a seminal post investigating what more daughters do to a President.
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