Markets are extremely quiet this morning following Wednesday’s fireworks. There’s still been a number of big earnings reports from the likes of Qualcomm (QCOM), News Corp (NWSA), and Square (SQ) to name a few. Jobless claims came in at 214K, which was right around expectations of 213K. At 2 PM we will hear from the FOMC where traders are hoping that the statement will imply a slightly less hawkish tone.
With all the talk about market performance around and after midterm election years, we wanted to provide a quick comparison of the S&P 500’s quarterly performance during the first two years of President Trump’s tenure to the media quarterly returns of the S&P 500 during the first two years of the four-year Presidential cycle. Looking at the chart, while there have been a number of quarters where returns have been similar under Trump to the historical norm, as one might expect, there have also been some wide disparities. This quarter, for example, the S&P 500 is down 3.5% in a quarter where it has historically rallied 7.9%.
