CALDEIRÃO DE BOLSA

Predicting a president

October 19, 2004


Don't listen to the pollsters and the pundits. There are a handful of unscientific tools you can use to predict who will win the race between President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry.


The Redskins Rule

The granddaddy of them all. Every time the Washington Redskins have won their last game before the election, the incumbent party has kept the White House. Every time they have lost, the incumbent party needed to book some moving trucks.

Accuracy: 16-0 dating back to 1940, the team's first election year in Washington.

This year's game: Oct. 31 against Green Bay.

Update: On 31 October 2004, the Green Bay Packers defeated the Redskins in Washington, 28-14, which — if the established pattern holds true — predicts that Democratic challenger John Kerry will unseat incumbent President George W. Bush in the upcoming presidential election.

Tall tales

The taller candidate won five straight elections until the 5-foot-11 Bush toppled 6-foot-1 Al Gore. The theory is the taller candidate looks more presidential on television.

Accuracy: 8-3 since 1960, when television started playing a major role in election coverage.

Advantage: Kerry. The 6-foot-4 senator would match Abraham Lincoln as the tallest president in history.


A matter of taste

Family Circle magazine printed cookie recipes from the wives of the presidential candidates and asked readers to try them, with the winning recipe corresponding to the winning candidate. This election's matchup featured Laura Bush's oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies and Teresa Heinz Kerry's pumpkin spice cookies.

Accuracy: 3-0 since 1992.

Advantage: Bush. She won with 67 percent of the vote. It probably didn't help that Heinz Kerry said in a National Public Radio interview earlier this year that the recipe was not her own and that even she didn't like them.


Coffee choice

7-Eleven is holding its second 7-Election, letting patrons choose a Bush, Kerry or Third Party/No Opinion cup when they buy a 20-ounce hot beverage.

Accuracy: A qualified 1-0. "No Opinion" had a clear majority in 2000, but Bush outpolled Gore.

Advantage: Bush has a slight edge on Kerry, but "No Opinion" is winning again in a landslide. Polling will continue until Nov. 1.

Dow points to Kerry?

Study says if the Dow drops more than 0.5% in the month before the election, incumbents lose.

October 31, 2004: 11:12 AM EST

By Jacqueline S. Gold, CNN/Money contributing writer

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - If the historical performance of the Dow Jones industrial average is any guide, John Kerry will be the 44th president of the United States.

According to a recent study by the Hirsch Organization, publishers of the Stock Trader's Almanac, if the Dow loses more than 0.5 percent of its value in the month of October before Election Day, then an incumbent president is going to lose his job. The Dow fell 0.52 percent in October.

This predictor has been true without exception from 1904 to the present, according to Jeffrey Hirsch, editor of the Stock Trader's Almanac and president of the Hirsch Organization.

The 30-share Dow, the world's most widely watched stock market gauge, closed at 10,080.27 on Sept. 30 and at 10,027.47 Friday, the last trading day in October.

So what would it have taken for the indicator to point to a Bush win?

For the president to be assured of a win, the Dow would have to be at 10,413 or above at the end of October, Hirsch said. That's because incumbents usually win when the Dow rises in October, but this is especially so if the gain is 3.3 percent or more.

If the Dow is up for the month but the gain is less than 3.3 percent, that's good for the incumbent but not a sure thing. When the gain is at least 3.3 percent, however, the incumbent has always won, according to Hirsch.

Hirsch said there are other signs in the market's recent performance pointing to a Kerry victory.

His organization has also studied what happens to incumbents based on stock market performance from the end of the most recent political convention -- this year, the Republican National Convention in New York -- until the election.

The Dow closed on Sept. 2 at 10,260.20 after the RNC wound down. For President Bush to win, the Dow would have to rise at least 260 points or so from current levels, bringing it back into positive territory, according to this indicator.

This post-convention indicator has correctly predicted presidential elections since 1900, said Hirsch, with two notable exceptions.

The first one occurred in 1956, when Dwight Eisenhower won his second term. That year, the Dow lost 2.5 percent between the end of the last convention on Aug. 24 and Election Day.

But the Soviet army rolled its tanks into Hungary that October, making the return of an incumbent who had been a five-star general in World War II particularly appealing.

The post-convention indicator was undone again in 1984, when Ronald Reagan won his second term in office. That year, the Dow lost 0.6 percent from the day after the convention until the election, when it closed at 1,229.24 on the eve of Reagan's landslide.



"But that was just a minor correction on the heels of a huge bull market. The market's former success seemed to be more of an indicator that year," said Hirsch.

There is some hope for President Bush, however.

Looking just at the last week, the market has had a bit of a run, and although he hasn't studied the Dow's performance for each week before a presidential election over the last century, Hirsch said that the Dow's nearly 270-point rise since last Friday "is better news for Mr. Bush."



Find this article at:
http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/29/markets ... /index.htm

Convenções e mercados de acções: outra vez Washington e Wall Street

Newsletter nº 145
30 Ago 2004

Activobank7.pt


Mais uma vez abordamos a relação entre as eleições presidenciais americanas e os movimentos dos mercados accionistas. Analisando os factos, conseguimos encontrar algumas relações entre as convenções dos partidos, as eleições presidenciais e os movimentos dos mercados de acções americanos.

Nesta semana em que se realiza a Convenção Republicana de apoio à reeleição do actual residente na Casa Branca (que terá como adversário o Senador Kerry nomeado candidato pelos Democratas), é oportuno abordar as relações que acima referimos e sugerir algumas pistas de investimento que as mesmas sugerem.

No quadro ao lado encontram-se as variações do índice Dow Jones entre a data da última convenção e o dia das eleições, desde o ano de 1900. Recorde-se que no ano em curso a última Convenção tem lugar esta semana (entre 30 de Agosto e 2 de Setembro) e a eleição efectuar-se-á em 2 de Novembro.

Como se pode verificar, há um certo padrão
de comportamento do mercado de acções entre aquelas duas datas, que se pode
resumir no seguinte:


Quando os mercados sobem entre
estes dias, o partido do presidente no poder ganha as eleições;

Quando os mercados descem entre estas datas, o novo presidente vem
do partido da oposição.


As excepções mais extremas ocorreram em 1932, em que o mercado reagia ainda das grandes quedas de 1930 e tinha caído cerca de 40% até final de Julho, em 1956, quando os tanques russos invadiram a Hungria e em 1968, em que o mercado recuperou depois de se ter movido em queda até Junho (consequências do Maio francês?).


Porém, se repararmos nos movimentos dos mercados de acções, após as eleições e até final de cada ano (os meses de Novembro e Dezembro), verificamos que quase sempre o mercado, medido pelo Dow Jones Industrial Average, tem um desempenho positivo, como se verifica no quadro ao lado.


É evidente que podem sempre acontecer excepções aos padrões acima referidos, especialmente num tempo em que a situação geopolítica internacional e os preços das matérias-primas criam permanentemente instabilidade nos mercados. Mas, se entende que os mercados podem antever o resultado das eleições, se entende que o presidente se vai manter e se, neste caso, o passado se pode repetir, pode investir algumas poupanças no mercado americano. Tenha em consideração que, além de tudo, o risco cambial da relação entre o dólar e o euro está sempre presente no investimento realizado no outro lado do Atlântico.

Presidential Elections and the Stock Market

Sue Stevens, 07.28.04, 7:00 AM ET

http://www.morningstar.com

It has started. The political conventions are in full swing, and the election is not far behind. 2004 has been a strange year so far in the stock market. Many fundamental factors point to what should be a decent year for the market, but concerns over terrorist incidents, oil prices, and inflation cast a shadow across the horizon. And yet this week we saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average jump more than 100 points in a day.

Right now political pundits say the race for the White House is too close to call. So who would be best for the stock market over the next several years? Let's take a look at some of the theories out there and whether we should give them any credence.

What Studies Show

Several studies have explored the relationship of presidential elections and the stock market. One of the most frequently cited is Richard Hoskins' "War Cycles/Peace Cycles," which shows that the first two years of a presidential term are when the weakest stock market results occur. The study also shows that returns are the highest in the year before a presidential election, and the year of an election is good, but not as good as the year before.

That makes a certain amount of sense because new presidents want to get the bad news that could affect the market (such as tax policy decisions) out of the way as soon as possible so they can build up momentum as they head into the next election. If we look at the last four years, both 2001 (when the S&P 500 was down 11.98%) and 2002 (when it was down 22.1%) were plagued with a bear market that didn't let up until 2003. 2003 (when the S&P was up 28.59%) was a better year than many people expected. 2004, however, has been more volatile and clouded with uncertainty as we approach the election. (The S&P was up 3.4% as of the end of June).

A recent study published in the October 2003 issue of The Journal of Finance looked at how the stock market correlates with presidential-partisan cycles. Here's what it found:

--Equity premiums are higher when the Democrats are in office (9% higher using market-cap-weighted numbers and 16% higher when using equally weighted numbers). That's caused in part by real market rates being higher under the Democrats and real interest rates being lower.

--These risk premiums are higher for smaller-cap stocks than larger-cap stocks.

--The presidential cycle variables are not correlated with the business cycle variables.

--Equity premiums do not peak around election dates.

--Volatility is higher when a Republican president is in office.

Although these findings are interesting and do indicate that elections can affect the stock market, they may not tell the whole story. There are a number of "wild card" issues no one can predict--such as hanging chads or the threat of terrorism. Nevertheless, it is interesting to study how both stock market returns and T-bill returns have fared during prior administrations. (Note: This data is not from the study cited above.):


There have been only two presidential terms when the stock market lost money--under Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression and under Franklin Roosevelt in the late 1930s. But take a look at the effect inflation has on T-bills. During the first Reagan presidency, the compounded annual rate of inflation was 5.1%. That pushed T-bills up into the double digits.

What to Do

Although pondering the presidential effect on the stock market is fascinating, ultimately it doesn't mean you should change the way you manage your portfolio. From a defensive perspective, you're always going to need a depth of diversification. And the results of a presidential election affect much more than just rates of return. They also can drive changes in tax rates and other matters of public policy.

I do think it's fair to say that tax rates are probably lower now than they will be in the future. Part of tax rates being lower now may be determined by who is in the White House, but part of it may happen no matter who is elected, due to scheduled tax-code revisions, for example. So it makes sense to think through your personal situation to see how it may benefit you to take taxable distributions or taxable gains sooner rather than later.


Estudo
The Presidential Puzzle:
Political Cycles and the Stock Market

http://www.afajof.org/Pdf/forthcoming/Valkanov.pdf