How the stock market's performance under Biden is worse than under Obama and Trump — in one chart

By Victor Reklaitis

'With the 2024 election in sight, the disparity ... could cause some concern,' analyst says

U.S. stocks so far haven't fared as well under President Joe Biden as they did in Donald Trump's first term or in either of Barack Obama's two terms.

The research team at Wilshire Indexes is pointing that out this month with the chart below, which features the FT Wilshire 5000 XX:W5000FLT, an index that aims to reflect the performance of the total U.S. stock market.

Biden and his allies could be worried about how stocks SPX are doing, and it's possible his administration will try to help the market somehow in 2024, according to Philip Lawlor, managing director of market research at Wilshire Indexes.

"With the 2024 election in sight, the disparity in cumulative equity return generated so far under the Biden administration compared to the superior return trajectory delivered by the Trump and Obama presidencies could cause some concern," Lawlor wrote. "Electoral cycle logic points to the Biden administration doing its utmost to ensure that the gap closes next year."

Biden officially launched his re-election campaign in April, and the Democratic incumbent and his cabinet officials have traveled around the U.S. in recent months to talk up their economic policies, including measures such as the Inflation Reduction Act.

When asked about the stock market's struggles earlier this year, one White House official told MarketWatch that the administration wants to see "strong performance," but he also noted that roughly half of Americans don't hold stocks and highlighted other economic indicators.

"The markets are going to go up and down. The main measure that the president has about the state of the economy is, how are middle-class families doing?" said Bharat Ramamurti, deputy director of the White House's National Economic Council.

"Do they have good-paying jobs that allow them to support themselves and their families? Are they seeing their wages go up? Do they feel like they have good opportunities to advance in their career, good opportunities to switch jobs and make more money? Or live in a better neighborhood, or whatever the case may be? By those metrics, we think that the economy is doing very, very well."

Republican presidential hopefuls made their economic pitches at a debate on Wednesday night in Milwaukee, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is currently running second in GOP primary polls, saying the country "must reverse 'Bidenomics' so that middle-class families have a chance to succeed again." Trump, the current frontrunner in the 2024 primary, skipped the debate and instead released an interview just before the event kicked off.

Betting markets tracked by RealClearPolitics give Biden a 35% chance of winning the 2024 presidential election, while Trump is at 27% and DeSantis is at 6%.

Stocks DJIA COMP were higher in choppy trading Friday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that the central bank may need to raise interest rates even higher to temper a strong U.S. economy and quell inflation, while assuring investors that the Fed would proceed cautiously.

From MarketWatch's archives (Dec. 31, 2022):U.S. stocks log their worst year since 2008, crushed by Fed's rate hikes

-Victor Reklaitis

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08-25-23 1321ET

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