Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Change we can believe in?

I have written earlier about the tremendous joy of Obama supporters. That joy has not lifted prices in the stock markets. After a rise on the day of election, the stock market has declined on five of six days, as the closing S&P averages show:

Nov 3 966.30
Nov 4 1005.75
Nov 5 952.77
Nov 6 904.88
Nov 7 930.99
Nov 10 919.21
Nov 11 898.95
Nov 12 852.30 (preliminary)

A 15% decline, which is what these numbers show, is huge. The best case for Obama is that these results reflect the ongoing financial panic and are totally unconnected to what is happening in the political sphere. Certainly they show limits to the magic he can work. I will leave it to the reader to figure out the worst case for Obama.

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