As ever, the economy will be the key issue in the US presidential race. Mitt Romney’s aim will be to brand Barack Obama a failure for his stewardship and to argue that Americans would be better off electing a Republican who knows something about business.

The team at CMC Markets set out to test this assumption by analysing stock market returns under every president since 1900. A YouTube presentation of the report shows that as far as Wall Street is concerned, it is better to vote Democrat. The average monthly return on the stock market has been 0.73% under Democrat presidents, almost double the 0.38% under Republicans.

Returns were highest under Calvin Coolidge, a Republican president during the Roaring 20s, when the stock market boomed ahead of the Wall Street Crash. But the next two presidents in the league table were Democrats – Bill Clinton and Franklin Roosevelt. Obama’s performance, using this yardstick of economic health, has been above average – only slightly below that of Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

Normally higher stock market returns would be associated with higher levels of risk. But when adjusted for volatility, Democrat presidents still come out comfortably on top.

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