President Trump often touts his 401k prowess, connecting with the everyman and woman with pointed remarks about retirement plan balances.
While his years in the Oval Office have no-doubt benefited 401k savers, they are not as good as he would have you believe (shocked!).
Yahoo Finance took a look at the numbers and compared them with past presidents and their White House tenure.
Not surprisingly, President Obama comes out far ahead—averaging 37.65%—when comparing S&P 500 return performance through 134 weeks of a presidential term.
Granted, his first term was marked by a recovery, but his second-term 41.1% is nonetheless very impressive, especially when matched against Trump’s 27.6%.
“If for some reason I wouldn’t have won the [2016] election, these markets would have crashed. That’ll happen even more so in 2020,” Trump told a rally-goers in New Hampshire last week. “See, the bottom line is… You have no choice but to vote for me because your 401k, everything is going to be down the tubes. So, whether you love me or hate me, you’ve got to vote for me.”
Historical analysis
Recent history, however, refutes his remarks. Clinton’s second term S&P performance was an eyepopping 71.7%, according to Yahoo, and while it was beaten by Reagan’s 92.2% second-term rise, Democrats still beat Republicans overall 36% to 17.7%.
Yet during a roughly 90-minute campaign rally in Manchester, Trump repeatedly pointed to the country’s (and New Hampshire’s in particular) strong economy in making his case for reelection while also defending his economic policies that are alarming some businesses and investors amid increasing concerns about a recession.
“You have the best unemployment, you have the most successful state in the history of your state and the history of our country. And then you’re going to vote for somebody else? Oh great. ‘Let’s vote for Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren. We have the best numbers we’ve ever had—let’s vote for somebody else.’”
Predictions of stock market performance have hobbled many a politician and pundit, with Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market, by James Glassman and Kevin Hassett, famously subject to ridicule in the aftermath of its publishing.
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