Live by the Sword

February 8, 2021

Live by the Sword

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, more than any other indicator, was the metric Donald Trump used to tout his performance. Just before his defeat, he tweeted, “That’s a sacred number, 30,000, and nobody thought they’d ever see it.” This was just one of the numerous tweets about the stock market he sent out during his four years. However, The DJIA is not always directly linked to decisions the president makes. More often, the direction of the index is attributable to factors beyond the president’s control, from geopolitical incidents to decisions made by the Federal Reserve to the decisions of a former president, or even a pandemic. That is why one should never hang their hat on the performance of a fickle and volatile index. The DOW is actually up over 18% since his election, but Joe Biden has not mentioned it once.

So how did Trump actually do versus his predecessors regarding the DOW. Based on easily retrievable data, he should have kept his mouth shut. At 35.5%, he did better than Hoover (-82.1), Nixon (-28.3), George W. (-26.5), and Carter (-.7). He also bested JFK, Harding, and Johnson. However, he woefully lagged Northampton’s own Calvin Coolidge (+230.5), Clinton (+228.9), FDR (+198.6), and Obama (+148.3). He also lagged Reagan, Eisenhower, and Truman substantially as well as trailing George H.W. Bush and Ford. Based on his own evaluation criteria, Trump was less than mediocre. If you live by the sword, you should be prepared to die by the sword, metaphorically speaking.