That radical Obama was not so bad for markets
On the eighth anniversary of the financial crisis, Barry Ritholtz offers a timely reminder of why it is important to keep politics out of your portfolio
New York — We celebrate several market-related anniversaries this week. Perhaps the best known is the market low during the financial crisis, which occurred eight years ago. Remember the despair on that day, March 9 2009, when the S&P 500 index hit 667? (It’s at about 2,368 now.) Think hard, too, about whether you scoffed when newly elected President Barack Obama just a few days earlier urged investors to buy stocks. Or has your hindsight bias already replaced that week with the memory of a more comforting and self-congratulatory narrative? Maybe you were one of those who nodded in agreement with a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Republican economist Michael Boskin, which also is celebrating an eight-year anniversary this week. The headline, which couldn’t have been more off-base, said it all: Obama’s radicalism is killing the Dow. In the meantime, the S&P 500 increased 232% from the time Boskin’s op-ed appeared to the day Obama left office. This is another cautionary tale of how dange...
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