Donald Trump’s victory has been very good for the Dow – so far

Before the 2016 election, one of the many predictions that turned out to be incorrect was that the markets weren’t accounting for the possibility of a Donald Trump win. If Trump pulled off the upset, the thinking went, the markets would plummet thanks to the uncertainty of what that victory might mean.

When Trump did win, that’s what happened – at least for the first 12 hours or so. Overnight futures markets sank quickly. But by the end of the day on Wednesday, Nov. 9, the Dow Jones industrial average closed up more than 250 points.

Since then, the index has been on a tear. Day after day, the Dow is setting new highs – a trend that’s on its way to being a significant outlier in American history.

Depending on how the markets fare over the next few days, the relative increase in the Dow will be the highest of any post-election period on record.

There’s a lot of time before inauguration, but so far only the post-election periods of 1924, 1928 and 1996 compare. The first two of those, of course, came at a time when the Dow Jones average was much lower, making percentage-point swings that much easier. The record-holder for biggest drop between Election Day and inauguration is held by Barack Obama in 2008 – largely a function of the economic collapse that contributed to his victory.

That pattern of new record highs has some precedent, too. In both 1996 (following the re-election of Bill Clinton) and 1972 (the re-election of Richard Nixon), the markets kept hitting record highs after the election.

Clinton’s 1996 pattern looks like Trump’s right out of the gates, though it cooled off slightly for a while.

There’s a huge difference between how the markets respond after an election and how they respond to a presidency, of course. Between Election Day of 1996 and 2000, the market improved by 80.1 percent. Between 1972 and 1976, though, it dropped 1.8 percent.

And, of course, that 1928 post-election tear didn’t work out terribly well over the long run, either.

In other words: Maybe give it a little while longer before you mock those pre-election predictions.