The Old Rules No Longer Apply

It’s the economy, stupid.  President Bill Clinton rode that phrase into office in 1992.  The economy is often what decides a presidential election.  But in this goofy election season, we are getting a couple of different impressions.

On the one hand gas prices affect almost everybody and low gas prices along with high approval ratings for PRESIDENT OBAMA bode well for HILLARY CLINTON's chances to win the White House, according to a model from Moody's Analytics.  Moody’s accurately predicted the last nine U.S. presidential contests and the Moody's formula has Clinton winning 332 Electoral College votes against 206 for Republican DONALD TRUMP.  That’s big but not unprecedented – it matches Obama's margin of victory over MITT ROMNEY in 2012.

On the other hand, CNN Money reports that how the U.S. market performs between August 1 and October 31 has been a reliable predictor of who ends up in the White House according to market expert Sam Stovall.  The conclusion there is that since the S&P 500 is down about 2% it should bode well for Trump.

So even the usual predictors conflict with each other in the Clinton /Trump presidential soap opera of 2016!