Obama Has Been The Best President For The Stock Market Since Eisenhower #p2 #tcot

Barack Obama often gets slammed for his stewardship of the U.S. economy, but for stock investors, he's been one of the best presidents since World War Two.

At 1,400, the S&P 500 on Friday was closing in on a four-year high and was up 74 percent since January 20, 2009, the day Obama took office. Not since Dwight Eisenhower's first term has a president had such a strong run for their first term.

That rally might be just enough to get Obama re-elected, making him the first sitting president in the post-war era to win a second term with a jobless rate higher than 7.2 percent.

"Even though business and corporate sentiment is not good for Obama because they don't think he's been good for the economy, the fact that the market has done very well under him is a positive," said Ethan Siegal, head of The Washington Exchange, which analyzes politics for institutional investors.

Soon after taking office, the president even waded into the dangerous territory of stock market prognostication.

On March 3, 2009, Obama, responding to a question about a market that was plumbing 12-year lows, said: "What you're now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal, if you've got a long-term perspective on it."

Read more: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/10/us-usa-campaign-obama-stocks-idINBRE8790VX20120810#ixzz23AzpCLkb