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Democrats beat Republicans 25:1 in stock market returns

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I realize that it's not a reason to pick a president, but if you care about your stock portfolio, you'd be better off with a Democratic president. How so? Peter Siris of Guerrilla Capital has run some numbers -- comparing an investment of $10,000 in the S&P 500 under Republican administrations to the same investment under Democratic ones. He permitted me to preview these numbers which will run in his New York Post column on November 3rd.

Since 1929 both parties have controlled the White House for 40 years and Siris estimates that the $10,000 would be worth $11,733 under Republican administrations and $300,671 under Democratic ones. According to Siris, "for whatever reason, Republicans have been in office during the three worst stock market declines: The Great Depression, the early to mid-1970s, and the current market."

That may sound interesting but what about recent presidents? Under the Clinton administration, the S&P 500 rose the most in the last 60 years -- up an average of 17.4% per year. The only president who posted a negative performance is a familiar name -- George W. Bush -- under his administration, the S&P 500 has fallen 27% from 1,342 to 979. It's an exceptional record and one that I hope will never recur.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

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Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA+20.0310,246.97
NASDAQ-2.982,151.08
S&P 500-0.071,093.01

Last updated: November 11, 2009: 08:25 AM

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