
If you look at the companies that major contributors to the presidential candidates are connected with, stock indexes can be created for each candidate. Forbes Magazine came out with a great list of the members of the Forbes 400 that have contributed to presidential campaigns. The following spells out the stocks of each candidate, and who the contributor is. The contributors are either major shareholders or they run or have run these companies. The above graph shows the Barack Obama Stock Index and the John McCain Stock Index and compares them to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. What is interesting is that the returns for the two presidential candidates are almost identical, with the McCain Stock Index down 21% and the Obama Stock Index down 22%. But what is most unusual is that the indices for both candidates greatly underperformed the ...