Now that the midterm elections are safely behind us, a lot of people are wondering how politics will impact their investment returns. The conventional wisdom is that divided government–where one party holds the White House while the other controls the House, the Senate or both–is good for the markets. But is that true?
While each era and circumstance are independent of each other, there are some historical trends that are interesting to follow. Perhaps most interesting of all is that the markets seem to like midterm elections regardless of who wins. The S&P 500 has gained in every six-month period following the last 16 midterm elections, with a remarkable average return of 16%. Going back a little further, from 1922 to 2006, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has jumped 8.5% in the 90 trading days following the midterms, versus just 3.6% in non-midterm-election years.
If you look at divided government vs. one party control of both the White House and Congress, the results are a bit harder to interpret. The average annual total return for the S&P 500 when Washington is a one-party town has been 9.4%, compared with 10.6% when the parties were checking and balancing each other. However, another study going back to 1900 found that during times of total unity (67 years analyzed), the Dow gained 7.6% a year. When Washington is in partial gridlock where one party controlled Congress and the other the White House (32 years), the index gained 6.8%.
Furthermore, since 1900 the third year of a US presidency has been easily the best year for markets, with investors enjoying median annual gains of 16.5%. And it appears that the S&P 500 Index performs two or three times better when Congress is out of session than when at least one of the two chambers are at work. A famous quote from an 1866 New York court decision, that “No one’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session,” would seem to have some truth for the equity markets.
Article written by Bob Veres of Inside Information
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/singer-17484-percent-washington.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2010/11/election_day_prediction_buy.html[1]