Following The Data -- July 25, 2024

Locator: 48235ECON.

Link here. Comments are amazing.

Is anyone paying attention? 51 months of expansion and a Goldilocks economy, exactly overlaps the Biden administration.

If one follows the data, it seems that Biden and JPow have done one heck of a great job. 

The preceding 128 months (2009 - 2020) were mostly Barack Obama's.

"Everyone" it seems "demands" that the Fed remain true to its word -- to follow the data. And,  yet, it appears, individual investors often don't follow the data at all. Many "investors" seem to confuse politics with investing. 

Even more interesting, 

• June, 2009 - June, 2024: a bull market the entire time, 51 weeks + 128 weeks = 179 weeks!  Longest bull market since WWII. With one "break" between February 2020 and April 2020 ---> one single month. 
• If folks recall, March, 2020, was the first month of the lockdown.  
• maybe a graph will help --
  

Of the 15-year (180-month) bull run, all but four years (48 months) "belong" to Obama (96 months) / Biden (48 months).

And look at that GDP growth under Biden vs under Obama / Trump (unfortunately not apple-to-apple comparison because of the huge Covid effect.

Note: I often make simple arithmetic mistakes. If I've made any such mistakes, the argument still holds -- exhibit A? The graph.

Now, another observation.

See the graph below.

I would love to see folks explain the factors that moved the investing period B from the investing period A.

And then the factors that drove the investing period C compared to the flat investing period B, and also flat in period A. 

Outside of a "Black Swan" event (to include a geopolitical event), the AI revolution suggests to me that investing period C will continue. 

Investing period B was entirely George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Investing period A was Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Jimmy Carter was flat, and it was Ronald Reagan's terms that moved us from "A" to "B."