How market gains under Biden leadership compare to Trump era

While US markets (^DJI, ^IXIC, ^GSPC) grew under President Trump's administration from 2016 to 2020, indices have notably surged throughout President Biden's current term.

Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman compares and contrasts the market trends seen under both leaders as Biden enters into the last year of his current team and is set for a rematch with Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video transcript

JARED BLIKRE: US markets have surged during Biden's presidency. The S&P 500 up about 40% as we settle into his fourth year. Now, we want to know, how does it compare to stocks under former President Trump? And how should investors consider this heading into the 2024 election? Joining us now on this is Yahoo Finance's Senior Columnist Rick Newman. Rick, latest issue--

RICK NEWMAN: Hey, guys.

JARED BLIKRE: Thank you. Bidenomics, go. Where are we?

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah. The stock market is one of the stats I track for the Yahoo Finance Bidenomics report card. How is Biden doing on the economy compared with prior presidents going all the way back to Jimmy Carter in the 1970s? And there's been an interesting flip in the last month or two as we've had this going on what's like a six month stock rally here.

So for most of Biden's presidency when you compare the S&P 500 under Trump with the S&P under Biden, the stock market was doing better under Trump. But now that we're in the fourth year of each president's term, if you compare the stock market under Biden with Trump at the same point in his presidency, Biden is blowing Trump away at this point.

S&P 500 up about 40% since Biden took office. And at this point in Trump's presidency, the S&P 500 was only up about 13%. So 40% under Biden, only 13% under Trump. And there's a big reason. Stocks were doing well under Trump until the COVID pandemic erupted in February and March of 2020. So that was basically four years ago.

We got a big downturn in the market. We had a deep but short recession. And then stocks recovered under Trump, but if stocks just stay flat for the rest of Biden's term, he will still be Trump on the stock market. Does this matter? Well, I'll tell you who it matters to. It matters to Donald Trump because he has said more than once, he said in 2020, well, if you elect Joe Biden, the stock market's going to crash. It did not crash.

And then Trump even recently has said, well, the only reason stocks are going up is because of me because investors are happy that I'm going to be the Republican presidential nominee and probably be president again. So therefore, investors are happy about the prospect of a second Trump economy. I don't buy that. I don't think many people do. But there are some bragging rights at stake here.

JARED BLIKRE: As there are. And we're going to be watching that DJT ticker as well. But that's a story for another day. Thank you, Rick Newman.