I just thought I would do a screenshot of the S&P 500 chart that covers the last 4 years or so. This includes mostly the Trump Era and the first year of the Biden Era up to this week.
The Trump Era
During the Trump Era, there were two big market corrections in 2018 and 2020. The March 2020 plunge was actually a market crash fueled by uncertainty at the onset of the Covid Pandemic, when we had to go into a nationwide lockdown in March. The stock market circuit breaker actually was triggered a few times, which stopped trading altogether for a day or two, or three. I can’t remember off-hand but as an investor, the experience was shocking and scary.
Should we blame Trump for that Market Crash?
It’s hard to say. But, his approach to the entire pandemic seemed to be one of indifference, which probably caused much uncertainty (and everyone buying up all the toilet paper)… I’m sure people had fears of a nationwide disaster and imagining the worst apocalyptic scenerios, thus the markets tanking. And, looking back, we seemed to overcome the whole global pandemic successfully.
Of course, most people will tell you we are over the hump, and people are trying to get back to normalcy, but there are still Covid variants out there, and Hong Kong and China (even New Zealand) have had surges of Covid cases again.
The Biden Era
It would seem that Biden is unsuccessful as a president, but given the ongoing Covid global pandemic, sudden inflation, the War in Ukraine, and everything else from rising real estate prices to supply chain bottlenecks, he’s probably doing the best he can given the scenario.
Keep in mind that the Federal Reserve is set to do rate hikes, which was inevitable, and during the Trump Era, it seemed that Trump was putting lots of pressure on Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to lower the rates, which he did several times to almost negative zero. To me this is unheard of, and why would they do that with the economy and the stock market doing so well. And, in the end, rate hikes in the Biden Era were inevitable.
Making Sense Of All This…
I’m trying to be fair and impartial, and non-partisan, but it always looks bad when a sitting president has a major stock market crash during his term… With Trump it was March 2020. With G.W. Bush it was 2008, toward the end of his term.
During the Obama Era we had 8 years of steady growth, and a recovery from the Financial Crisis of 2008, and we experienced the longest Bull Market in U.S. Stock Market history.
What will the next few weeks and months bring?
Lots of people are fearful of a WWIII, but no one on this planet can predict the future, they can only speculate on it and make their own predictions based on a plethora of conspiracy theories out there (I hate conspiracy theories).
If we got through the Stock Market Crash of 2020, I’m sure we can get through the current Stock Market downturn. The US economy is pretty resilient and strong, and we definitely have global connections with China, Japan, the EU, so despite sanctions against Russia which might affect us directly or indirectly, I think our nation’s economy is strong enough to withstand this current crisis.
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