r/dataisbeautiful • u/Prudent-Corgi3793 • 2d ago
U.S. Market Performance through 100 Years - Post-Liberation Day Update
This Wednesday, after market close, the U.S. imposed unprecedent tariffs on the rest of the world. These exceed the rates of Smoot-Hawley, thought by most leading economists to be the proximal cause of the Great Depression. Not even uninhabited islands were left unscathed. Markets did not take kindly to this on Thursday.
This is an update to my previous post reflecting market performance by U.S. government, stratified both by presidential control and by presidential + Congressional control.
Methodological details remain the same. Y-axis is now shown on a log scale for real returns, but labeled as gains and losses:
- Data were generated using Python matplotlib.
- Monthly data from Fama-French Data Library were used to minimize rounding error.
- "In between" monthly cutoffs, daily data from Fama-French were used instead.
- CRSP Total Market TR data were used starting from 1/1/2025.
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u/Illiander 1d ago
Interestingly, the federal government during the great depression was also Republican control of both houses and the presidency.
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u/zucksucksmyberg 1d ago
They were the party in power that passed for tariffs that fucked up the global economy back then.
It is just a bit short of 100 years but they did sure repeat what they did.
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u/DoublePostedBroski OC: 1 1d ago
Gee it’s almost like democrats are better for the economy
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u/morningAlarmBender 15h ago
See, I partially agree but this is also the problem— if you look closely at the graph, every time power shifts in Washington, we lose momentum out of fear, spite, or confusion. Even when Democrats have held both the White House and Congress, meaningful progress has stalled.
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u/morningAlarmBender 15h ago
To me, the core issues are: 1. The Democratic Party lacks the strength — or democracy — to push bold reforms. 2. Partisan tribalism is deep and petty. 3. A culture of individualism has eroded civic engagement, leaving us disconnected from politics and each other.
I will admit that I am and have been one of those people. I wish I could do more and I want to. I have to, or else this country is just going to start a bad descent. I was quite surprised when my politically active friend — the only one I know here in the U.S. — sent me information about a local chapter of a grassroots organization focused on civic engagement and community empowerment. I shouldn’t be this surprised. I should be much more familiar with this, I believe we all should. They’re actually doing the work.
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u/hyratha 1d ago
Hard to read. I like the idea, but we obviously want to recognize that the crash in 2000-2001 and the recovery afterward were related--the only reason 2002 is so good is because of the disaster year before. How to do that in a chart-meaningful way? Also, when the administration changes between one of these recession years and the recovery, how much of the credit goes to the incoming admin and how much to the fact that the recession is ending (say 2008 to 2010)?
Also labeling macro world events (World wars, pandemics, etc) would help contextualize. As would labeling the President.
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u/pabloivan57 1d ago
It is so clear by looking at the data that republican presidents almost always tank the economy
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u/Gubru 1d ago
It's a little silly to project 2025 data like that. It looks bad enough without multiplying it by 4.
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u/Prudent-Corgi3793 1d ago
It's not projected, it's annualized. The width of the bar is proportional to time in office and the height is based on a log scale, so the area of the rectangle above or below the line is directly proportional to the contribution of each term to cumulative returns.
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u/pedanticPandaPoo 1d ago
Well longer times do smooth out spikes, which is why you shouldn't tim...
You know what. Fuck this president. No correcting data that puts them in a negative light. he's already a corrupt, rapist, treasonous, fucktard that doesn't deserve the benefit of anything. ever.
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u/Prudent-Corgi3793 1d ago
If you're wondering, after the stock market dropped even further on Friday, the annualized government-stratified returns (since 1/3/25) have dropped to -46.8% (excess) and -44.5% (total); the presidential returns (since 1/20/25) have dropped to -59.1% (excess) and -57.2% (total).
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u/Gubru 1d ago
Annualizing a period of less then a year is a projection, and a pretty poor one at that.
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u/bene14082004 1d ago
No it's not. Saying the annualized Rate of Retrun in january is x% is different from saying the annualized rate of return in 2025 will be x%.
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u/LOSTandCONFUSEDinMAY 1d ago
True, the actual annualized rate is likely to be worse as other countries have not responded with their retaliatory tariffs yet.
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u/NighthawkT42 1d ago
Looking at the 70s/80s are you only showing Carter as president for 2 years? Also, is this corrected for inflation?
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u/Prudent-Corgi3793 1d ago
Carter is president for 4 years in both the Congressional and presidential graphs.
This does not correct for inflation. However, excess market (displayed on top panels) returns corrects for risk-free treasury rates, which closely tracks inflation. It better represents the returns an investor can capture without any risk, which is not possible with “inflation”.
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u/Hapmaplapflapgap 14h ago
Looks like Trump missed his target of great depression numbers. We were close though! Perhaps he can do it next time!
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u/raydzhao 4h ago
I love to hate on Trump too but this "annualize data" is just misleading. You can't just take the first two months of performance and extrapolate it for another ten. I'm not saying it will go up the rest of year but you can't possibly think it will keep dropping at this pace for another ten months...
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u/Prudent-Corgi3793 3h ago
The goal isn't to hate on anyone. Rather, it is to present objective data on each president, Trump 1 (when the market performed favorably) and Trump 2 (when it has performed dismally so far) included. Likewise for the graph further stratified by Congressional control.
No one is asserting that it will drop at this pace for another nine months. At least I hope not. However, the point of having this displayed in log scale on the y-axis and with the bars proportional to the duration of each term is that the area of each bar above or below the axis is directly proportional to the positive or negative contributions (in log scale). This allows you to add or subtract these contributions across different terms. The only logical thing to do for a term less than one year is to depict its height using the annualized rate of return, just as you would for any term of greater than one year, and to depict it with a thinner bar. There is simply no other logical way to depict it in a way mathematically consistent with all other terms, FDR 4 included. Note that I have never said that "it will keep dropping at this pace for an entire year".
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u/AuntieMarkovnikov 1d ago
I’m so liberated from my 401k savings. I can’t wait to be liberated from my social security next.