Data: Yahoo! Finance; Chart: Danielle Alberti/Axios
Stocks rose faster in the one month of trading following the 2020 election than in the month of trading that followed the 2016 election.
Between the lines: There are many macro differences between the 2016 and 2020 periods, most notably the pandemic, but both elections took place amid bull markets.
By the numbers:
- Dow Jones: +9.96% in 2020 vs. 7.77% in 2016
- Nasdaq: +11.68% in 2020 vs. 4.83% in 2016.
- S&P 500: +9.79% in 2016 vs. 5.61% in 2016.
President Trump said during this year's first debate that "If [Biden] is elected, the stock market will crash."
- Not only was he wrong, but the market has responded more strongly than it did after Trump's election.
The bottom line: The stock market's performance is not necessarily tied to conditions in the so-called real economy, nor is it necessarily correlated to whoever is measuring the Oval Office drapes.
