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Meanwhile at the stock exchange–

October 7th, 2008 @ 1:09 pm - by NMC · 2 Comments

We’re not to the bottom yet.  Which raises a question:  Has there been an 8 year presidency where the Dow ended lower than it started?

(pause)

That’s what I thought.

The numbers are below for the start of each term back to the worst of all, Herbert Hoover (I’ll interject that those wanting to know how bad the worst was, look at the difference between 1929 and 1933.  Ouch.

I’ve included vice presidential succession, and you’ll see that the only one other than Hoover who ended down was Nixon, but, by the end of Ford’s term it was up.  All the numbers are January except where noted (yes, I know Roosevelt was inaugurated in March).   There’s an arbitrariness to this, of course, but then it certainly doesn’t appear that the fundamentals of the economy are sound.

1929 273.5
1933 88.15
1945 (April) 165.43
1953 275.8
1961 703.91
1963 (Nov) 750.51
1969 946.04
1974 (Aug) 678.57
1979 839.21
1981 947.26
1987 2158.03
1989 2342.31
1993 3310.02
2000 10971.13
Yesterday 9751

Filed Under: Herald & Examiner

2 Responses so far ↓

  1. somslawyer says:
    October 7, 2008 at 2:18 pm

    It would be interesting to see these same numbers reported in current dollar terms, to allow direct comparisons of the rises and fall.

  2. somslawyer says:
    October 7, 2008 at 2:24 pm

    Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) — Global growth is headed for a “major downturn” next year, as U.S. gross domestic product grinds close to a halt, the International Monetary Fund said in a staff report prepared for a Group of Seven meeting this week.

    The U.S. will expand 0.1 percent next year, after growth of 1.6 percent this year, the IMF said in the report prepared for the Oct. 10 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the G-7 industrial nations. In its World Economic Outlook in April, the IMF said the U.S. would grow 0.5 percent this year and 0.6 percent next. A revised WEO will be released tomorrow.

    “The global economy is entering a major downturn,” the fund said in the report, dated Oct. 4. “Many advanced economies are now close to recession, while emerging economies are also slowing rapidly.”

    Nope, nowhere even close to the bottom.