Comments on: Is the Stock Market Like a Tracking Poll in Politics?

By: International Money Advice from Plonkee Money | Money Smart Life

International Money Advice from Plonkee Money | Money Smart Life — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:19:36 +0000

[...] -The Sun’s Financial Diary questions if the stock market is similar to a political tracking poll, as suggested by our president. [...]

By: Citi Forward, A Credit Card That Rewards You For Using Credit Wisely

Citi Forward, A Credit Card That Rewards You For Using Credit Wisely — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 05:18:35 +0000

[...] The Sun’s Financial Diary: Is the Stock Market Like a Tracking Poll in Politics? [...]

By: Jay Currie

Jay Currie — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:01:35 +0000

It is not a bad analogy so long as you don’t get bogged down in the details. A political tracking poll gives a snapshot of voter intentions with respect to a particular politician or group of politicians. The S&P can be looked at as providing a similar snapshot of the perceptions of the overall market by participants in that market.

But I think, Sun, you point is well taken. An index is about all the stocks which make it up. The proper political analogy would be a tracking poll of voting intentions towards the US Congress rather than the President.

By: Sun

Sun — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:27:24 +0000

@Sean: That’s clearly what he meant, however I still have a hard time find the similarity between the stock market and tracking poll. The stock market reflects sentiments of tens of thousands market participants, how they see the overall economy and earnings of particular companies. The political tracking poll, while also indicating opinions of a large number of people, can be changed by a single people, the politician. The politician that the poll tracks can adjust his/her strategies to shift public opinion (isn’t it true politicians make changes on the fly once they notice a dip in the poll?), but in the stock market, investors can’t really adjust their own strategies to change the market. Maybe their own balance sheet, but not the market.

By: Sean

Sean — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:41:10 +0000

I think he meant more that they are similar in that you can’t be reacting to the daily readings but need to look at their aggregate. If you start changing policy every time the tracking poll looks bad you’d never be able to accomplish anything. Although it’s also a little to hard make that work since, you would have to combine about 20 years of data until it starts looking good.

By: SunFinancial (Suns Financial Diary)

SunFinancial (Suns Financial Diary) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:26:22 +0000

Is the Stock Market Like a Tracking Poll in Politics?: President Obama is definitely trying very hard to boost t.. http://tinyurl.com/cehkcn