no apologies! heres an interesting link, from a while back.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E4DF1738F931A15754C0A9649C8B63 Market Place; President Bush is in a bad way, at least according to the Standard & Poor's index of 500 stocks.
By FLOYD NORRIS
Published: July 22, 2002
PRESIDENT BUSH, who marked his 18th month in office this weekend, is off to the worst start of any president in the last 75 years.
At least, that is, as measured by the performance of the Standard & Poor's index of 500 stocks.
With the plunge in stock prices over the last nine weeks, the S.& P. 500 has now fallen 36.9 percent since Mr. Bush was sworn in on Jan. 20, 2001. That is the worst record for any president, as measured by the S.& P., which dates back to 1927, and is nearly twice as bad as the record compiled over the first 18 months of Herbert Hoover's administration.
But the bad start may not herald anything harmful to Mr. Bush if he seeks a second term in 2004. For history suggests that presidents who get off to a bad start in the stock market often recover, as voters are quite willing to blame their predecessors for early economic problems. That appears to be especially true if the previous president was from a different party.
Conversely, great beginnings often go unrewarded by voters, who by the time a re-election campaign rolls around are likely to want to know what a president has done for them lately.
In fact, for a president, taking a recession early in a term has sometimes proved to be a good move. Consider Richard M. Nixon, until now the president with the worst first 18 months in office, at least as measured by the stock market. The S.& P. 500 fell 23.6 percent over his first 18 months, but it rallied and was nearing record levels by the time he ran again, winning in a landslide.
A bad start was no big problem for Ronald Reagan, either. His stock market record after 18 months showed a decline of 12.3 percent. But soon after, the big bull market of the 1980's began. He too won a second term in a landslide.
After 18 months of both the Nixon and Reagan administrations, the country was in a recession. That hurt the Republicans in both midterm elections, but the downturn was forgotten by the time of the re-election campaign, and both men were given credit by voters for the recovery.
That can be contrasted with the performance of the two recent presidents who were defeated in their second campaigns. Jimmy Carter never persuaded voters of his economic expertise, even though a weak start, with the S.& P. off 4.8 percent in his first 18 months, was followed by a much stronger finish. President Carter suffered a recession not during his early days, when it might have been attributed to his predecessor, but during his re-election year.
Then there was the first President Bush. The stock market soared early in his term, and by the time he had been in office 18 months the S.& P. 500 was up 26.2 percent. But his recession was just beginning then, and the economy never appeared very strong thereafter. He was blamed for the downturn, and his sparkling early performance did him no good in 1992, when Bill Clinton sent him packing.
Mr. Clinton went on to win re-election easily, despite a ho-hum first 18 months. He then became only the third president since the Civil War to avoid having his administration marred by a recession. But just like Lyndon Johnson, whose term in office was also recession-free, Mr. Clinton was unable to persuade the voters to applaud such excellent economic performance by voting for his vice president. (The other president without a recession was James A. Garfield, who served for only six months before he was assassinated in 1881.)
Hoover, of course, was not only defeated when he ran for re-election but also remained so unpopular that Democrats used his memory as a campaign issue for decades. It was not his first 18 months that hurt him, but the fact that he was unable to get the country out of the Depression.
If Mr. Bush is bothered by the record of having the worst start of any president, perhaps he can gain reassurance from the fact that he looks better if the Dow Jones industrial average is used as the benchmark.
That average is down only 24.3 percent since he took office, leaving his record slightly better than Hoover's, which showed a decline of 24.8 percent over the same period. But the Bush performance in the first 18 months lags every other president's since the index was begun in 1896.
