2010-08-12

Stock Market Performances And Presidents

This article on Forbes is six years old but I remember it from my time in the industry. Two things not often associated with Democrats - balanced budgets and stock markter performance - actually tend to do well under their administrations. Although it's likely to not be the case under Obama.

The prevailing perception is the GOP is the party of corporate America but it's pretty clear to me so are the Democrats. Same thing up here. The Liberal and Conservative parties are both equal in this respect. The narrative that one is for "more" and one "less" for the people is hogwash. Similarly, on cultural issues where the GOP are thought to be weak - like slavery, race and civil rights - they actually have a better record than Democrats.

What's up is down and what's down is up. It's the Bizarro world!

As per the markets, people don't care really who is in power. I always felt we over estimate politicians and the markets. What matters more is, as the article rightly points out I feel, is a company's earnings. Is it making money or not? Everything else is just details. We used to go nuts keeping track of all economic data and no matter how well we knew them I wondered just how useful they really were.

About Obama. The problem, among many of course, he has is monetary policy. He's flooding the system with cash and that leads to price inflation. What the usually means there's a flight to quality. It used to be the U.S. dollar but people now look at precious metals. That is, gold and silver. What this further means is growth stocks are likely to trade sideways for a while. What about fixed income? Similar situation but a complex one. Inflation is a bond's enemy and in tough economic conditions credit risk increases.

Only a blind partisan lobotimized bat would actually believe there's a recovery. Ever see or meet a bat with a lobotomy? Good. You don't want to know.

It's easy to get all doom and gloom with all this but the overall picture is not pretty. It doesn't mean the sky is falling...but geez-whiz...it's rough.

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The rumour spreading is: Forgiving mortgages!

If seriously considered, this is not the work of sound economic and even cultural reasoning. It's ideological nonsense. Voo-doo crap.

To be perfectly honest, it's a tight spot for Obama to be in. I don't know if there's anything he could really do. He can't do too much or it can blow up in his face.

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