March 6th 2009
Market Woes
I
ran some big numbers of you yesterday; here’s one more: $11 trillion. That’s how much stocks have lost since the market peaked in October 2007, just before banking and mortgage problems began driving it down. Losses since the start of 2009 are $2.6 trillion. That might make those who don’t much care for the capitalist system happy, but for the three-quarters of Americans who still invest in capitalism, the 53 percent drop is a very personal hurt.
How much of this is attributable to Obama? Well, when did America come to grips with the fact that Obama would be the next president? Let’s say Friday, October 3, 2008, a month before the election, when it looked like the economy had turned the voters decidedly Democratic, and go from there, tracking the Dow close:
- October 3, 2008 – $9,955.50
- Election Day, Nov. 4, 2008 – $9,625.28, down $330.22 since October 3, 2008
- The day after, Nov. 5, 2008 – $9,139.27, down $486.01 from Bush’s last day as president
- Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2009 – $7,949.09, down $1,190.18 from Election Day
- Yesterday, March 5, 2009 – $6,616.19, down $1,329.90 from Inauguration Day,and down $3,339.31 from Oct. 3, 2008.
That’s a fall of just over one third of the Dow’s value since it became evident to anyone with smarts on Wall Street that the next president would, in fact, be Barack Obama. Oh, and it’s a fall of $286.97 since Obama told folks to buy stocks on Wednesday.
Don’t trust the Dow? Then look at the Wilshire 5000, which includes just about every stock that trades, shown here in orange vs. the Dow’s blue:
It’s doing even worse. Nearly half of all stocks in the Wilshire 5000 are now trading at less than $5, and 37 percent are under $3. (Source: WSJ)
I used to think blaming the economy on the president was a cheap shot … and I still do. This fall is part the result of Dem policies on housing and mortgages crafted while Obama was still snorting coke in high school, and excessive spending by W and Congress. And Wall Street/Main Street is certainly no more enamored with Obama than it is with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
But my numbers show conclusively that the American voters were wrong when they decided to put their bet on a spend-crazy Obama who said before the election that he would not cut a single spending program despite the worsening downturn – a promise he’s kept.
Wall Street is not buying the Obama spin, just like it didn’t buy Carter 30 years ago, despite his popularity. And Wall Street won’t buy the spin, ever. It will buy – or sell – based on real, not political, results, something Obama has never delivered in his flighty career.
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