This morning's Wall Street Journal editorializes that the recent stock slide is because investors fear Barack Obama's anti-growth agenda (because, of course, President Bush's "pro-growth" agenda was so great for stocks):
The voters may be full of hope about the looming Obama Presidency, but so far investors aren't. No President-elect in the postwar era has been greeted with a more audible hiss from Wall Street. The Dow has lost 1,342 points, or about 14%, since the election, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hitting similar skids. The Dow fell another 4.7% yesterday.
Much of this is due to hedge fund deleveraging, as well as dreadful corporate earnings reports and pessimism that the recession will be deeper than many had hoped. We also don't want to read too much into short-term market moves. But there's little doubt that uncertainty, and some fear, over Barack Obama's economic agenda is also contributing to the downdraft. ...
What markets want to see from Mr. Obama is a sense that the seriousness of this downturn is causing him to rethink the worst of his antigrowth policies.
Right on cue, today the markets shot up nearly 7%.
--Jonathan Chait