Enough buzz was generated around the "internets" (my wife hates it when I say that) that pundits on both sides of the aisle started attacking and defending the conclusions. Some of these statements seems legitimate, some seem fallacious, but it seemed hard to pin down any sort of definitive answer. Party loyalty seemed a bigger factor in these discussions than any attempt to find out the truth of the matter.
Enter the nerds.
Theodore Gray, the co-founder of Wolfram Research and professional math/computer nerd, grabbed a pile of data and started to analyze it. Not any sissy journalist kind of analyzing in an Excel spreadsheet. No, he went gang-busters and started to try to account for things like inflation, lag between a president taking office and when his policies were implemented and companies paying dividends. The results showed that the choice of assumptions regarding these factors he included dramatically influence the results. Change the lag between inauguration and impact on the market and the best party overall could change.
The most interesting result, though, was what stock returns looked like spanning both Democratic and Republican presidents. In other words, choosing to invest in the markets regardless of the party of the sitting president. (Which, to the best of my knowledge, is what most people do anyway. I'll let you know if I here of anybody pulling money out of the market based on the result of this up-coming election. Don't hold your breath.) Check out the article to see the results.
The article demonstrates an opinion I've held for a long time: life would be better if we had more nerds.
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