Chart of the Day - Tuesday, October 8th, 2019

Today’s Chart of the Day was shared on Twitter by Strategas Research Partners (@StrategasRP). So much time is spent arguing over who will win the 2020 presidential election. But, perhaps the outcome lies in the performance of the stock market. The light blue line shows the average performance of the S&P 500 in the years where the incumbent party won. The dark blue line shows the average performance of the S&P 500 in the years where the incumbent party lost. As you can see, in the years where the incumbent party lost, the market did relatively poorly leading up to the election. This chart suggests that Americans tend to respond to poor stock market performance by voting for a change in leadership. For more on this phenomenon, check out this interesting article from LPL Financial Research.