Do Presidential Approval Ratings Mimic the Dow?
Gallup has an interesting new study about Presidential approval ratings and the behavior of the Dow Industrial Average. In short, sometimes the trend lines go together, sometimes they don’t.
Here’s the chart comparing Barack Obama’s approval rating to the Dow thus far into his presidency:
Here’s the chart for George W. Bush:
As you can see, there’s no easy correlation between approval ratings and the Dow. While you might assume that the stock market would play a big role in whether the public approves of a president’s performance, clearly there are other factors at work here.