As America approaches the one-year anniversary of the election of Donald Trump, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is on target to book its best annual performance under a first-term president when measured from Election Day.
The Dow is up by around 29 percent since Trump’s November 8 election victory over Hillary Clinton. That’s the best post-election, one-year performance for a first-term president since Franklin Roosevelt’s in 1932.
The Trump stock market easily beats the first years of his recent predecessors. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 was followed by rise of just 1.8 percent. The stock market declined after George W. Bush’s election in 2000.
Stocks declined after the elections of 1980, 1976, and 1968.
The 1960 election of John F. Kennedy was followed by a nearly 20 percent rise in the stock market. George H.W. Bush’s election led to a rise in the Dow of 23.3 percent. Smaller gains followed the elections of 1948 and 1952.
Roosevelt’s rally, which saw the Dow rise by more than 50 percent, has never been surpassed.
Ironically, many market pundits, economists, and analysts predicted a Trump victory would lead the market to decline or even crash.