Is the economy really better?

I have thought about this because I have not seen a significant increase in my portfolio or a real reduction in my taxes. To try to better understand if the economy is really better now than it was during the past presidency I have taken a look at the stock market, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), tax rates and real impact, unemployment and business starts and closes amongst other factors that tell us how the economy is really doing.

Post #1: The Stock Market

I kept hearing that the economy is doing well because the stock market is doing well and somehow this is attributed to the current president. I was not seeing this in my portfolio and the analysis that follows shows why.

Lets look at the US Stock Market actual daily results from the beginning of President Obama’s term, through President Trump’s term running until September 11, 2020.

The graph above shows that the market is higher today than it was during President Obama’s term, however, it has also been more volatile. Next I asked the question what was the absolute growth of the market during President Obama’s term versus what it has been since the beginning of President Trump’s term.

The information in this post was obtained from “www.macrotrends.net”, a 10 year look at the Dow Jones Industrial Daily Average.