Observer » s&p 500

Stocks Fall on Day After Obama Re-election, but Not as Far as in 2008

Patrick Clark — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 13:19:21 -0400

The stock market plummeted in morning trading the day after President Barack Obama's re-election, with the S&P 500 falling 1.9 percent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both down 2 percent.

Those numbers, however, may not be a ringing indictment of President Obama's second term: according to Bespoke Investment Group (hat tip to Sam Ro at Business Insider), today's losses appear to be an amplification of a recent trend:

In a note to Bespoke Premium clients yesterday, we looked at the performance of the S&P 500 on Presidential Election Days and the day after since 1984 when the equity market was first open for trading on the day of Presidential elections. What we found was that while the day of the election has historically been positive for stocks, the day after has been notoriously weak.

U.S. stocks have lost an average of 0.9 percent on the day after presidential elections since 1984, according to Bespoke. And while today's market tumble exceeds the average losses, they're not as bad as the day after the president's election in 2008, when the Dow Jones fell 5 percent on the day after, its worst post-election day performance since 1900.

The second and third worst day-after markets? Stocks fell 4.5 percent after Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1932 election, and 3.8 percent after Harry S. Truman's re-election in 1948.

Sign of The Times: Netflix Added To S&P 500, NY Times Dropped

admin — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:08:20 -0400

The symbolism here is a little too perfect.

Standard and Poor's announced yesterday that they were adding Netflix to the S&P 500, an index of large-cap stocks.

At the same time, they announced the New York Times Co. was being dropped down to the S&P 400, where middle sized stocks go.

Netflix has been on an unbelievable run over the last year, while the New York Times has slipped and stagnated.

SEC Expands ‘Circuit Breaker’ System in ‘Flash Crash’ Response

Mike Taylor — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 19:56:19 -0400

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that, yes, the May 6 "flash crash" was scary enough that it would expand the number of stocks that would trigger circuit breakers that halt trading when the market is gripped by extraordinary volatility.

The circuit-breaker rule says that trading in a security stops for five minutes if that security's price moves 10 percent or more within five minutes. "The pause gives the markets an opportunity to attract new trading interest in an affected stock, establish a reasonable market price, and resume trading in a fair and orderly fashion," the SEC said.

The SEC is also considering a retooling of market-wide circuit breakers, which might be smart, considering that the flash crash, which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average lose some 700 points in a matter of minutes, failed to trigger any such existing safeguards.