With the US presidential elections just a few months away, most of the headlines are dominated by the sniping between the Democrats and Republicans. But a new study says there are other factors that may determine who wins in November.
Roza Kazan reports on the role of the stock market in the race for the White House.
Paul Ryan, Republican Vice Presidential Candidate, said, "If we stay on the same path, we’ll get more of the same results, look at where President Obama has taken our economy"
Republicans have called President Barack Obama one of the most anti-business presidents in U.S. history.
But the stock market tells us otherwise.
On Friday, the last day of trading before the U.S. Labor Day holiday the S&P 500 closed above 1,400 points.
That’s a 108 percent rise since the market hit 12-year lows on March 9th, 2009.
This may be good news for the President - who says his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, has nothing new to say:
Obama said, "He did not offer you a single idea. It was just a re-tread of the same old policies that have been sticking it to the middle class for years."
A study by the Socionomics Institute found a gain of 20 percent or more in the Dow Jones Index in the three years preceding election day is all but assured victory for an incumbent.
This bodes well for Obama as the Dow is up 100 percent since it plunged back in March 2009.
Former presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton presided over respective gains of 25 and 35 percent. And both coasted to reelection.
But with the jobless rate remaining at 8.3 percent - Obama still has his work cut out for him - convincing U.S. voters he deserves a re-election.