Staying the Course in volatile times

Is there a lesson in

?

Recently First Trust issued an analysis of annual market

statistics showing declines vs returns based on the S&P 500 index for the 36 year period of

1980 - 2015

Too much information?

In simple terms, the black bars show the return for the calendar year and the orange bars show

the maximum decline in the S&P 500 index during the course of the

year – up is good, bad is down.

Who were the presidents during this 36 year period?

3 Democrats over 16 years 3 Republicans over 20 years

What is revealed when these results are averaged

by the party of the president?

Here are the averages for the Democrats

Here are the averages for the Republicans

And here they are side by side

Surprised? most people are