Tuesday, December 22, 2009

2000-2009: The Worst Decade for Stocks. Ever.

stocks

It’s (almost) official:

Wall Street Journal, Investors Hope the '10s Beat the '00s: Since End of 1999, U.S. Stocks' Performance Has Been the All-Time Clunker; Even 1930s Beat It:

The U.S. stock market is wrapping up what is likely to be its worst decade ever.

In nearly 200 years of recorded stock-market history, no calendar decade has seen such a dismal performance as the 2000s. ...

With two weeks to go in 2009, the declines since the end of 1999 make the last 10 years the worst calendar decade for stocks going back to the 1820s, when reliable stock market records begin, according to data compiled by Yale University finance professor William Goetzmann. He estimates it would take a 3.6% rise between now and year end for the decade to come in better than the 0.2% decline suffered by stocks during the Depression years of the 1930s.

3 comments:

thinking said...

The stock market has done worse under Republican presidents than Democratic ones; that's empirically true.

From Tommy McCall, NYT, Oct 14 2008:

Since 1929, Republicans and Democrats have each controlled the presidency for nearly 40 years.

As of Friday [Oct 10 2008], a $10,000 investment in the S.& P. stock market index would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents only, although that would be $51,211 if we exclude Herbert Hoover’s presidency during the Great Depression. Invested under Democratic presidents only, $10,000 would have grown to $300,671 at a compound rate of 8.9 percent over nearly 40 years.

End of quote.
I don't know why there's this myth among some that Republicans are better for the economy or even controlling the deficit.

Empirically, the stock market goes up more under Democratic presidents, deficits are smaller, and unemployment is lower. Also, income equality is more healthy.

If someone wants the party for economic prosperity the Democrats are the way to go.

thinking said...

As an aside, let's face the truth: the Bush presidency was an utter disaster. Virtually every charge his critics leveled at him and his administration turned out to be true.

Bush was a relatively unintelligent, incurious president, who was easily manipulated by his more ideological vice president and cabinet. The Bush presidency was marked by devotion to a simplistic ideology and coupled with incompetency in execution.

The Iraq war was not only the wrong move, but was indeed sold to the American public in a very deceptive manner.

Under Bush the US abandoned much of its moral authority and actually resorted to torture. That is indefensible.

Can anyone really say the US did better under Bush than Clinton? Does anyone really believe that the US would not have been better off under a President Gore?

The current Republican party has not moved on from the basics of the Bush years and in some ways is worse, as it reacts to being out of power.

The only good thing about the Bush years was that it led to the Obama presidency. Obama is far from perfect, but at least with a Democrat in the White House, we have a President and an administration that actually think and reason and look at facts. The intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican party is startling.

The Arthurian said...

Hello Brian. I like what you've done with the place.

Thinking -- interesting stats. But... how can I say this? I get the impression you see 'the economy' as a subdepartment of politics.

I tend to spend my time & effort trying to dis-entangle and separate politics from economic forces. I tend to think economic forces are the driving forces.