With the recent move of the Dow Industrial 30 to over the 20,000 mark, the new Presidential Administration and its proponents were quick to take credit for this milestone achievement. Kellyanne Conway quickly claimed this milestone achievement to be attributed to “The Trump Effect”. The President’s son, Eric, known throughout the world as an enlightened financial guru, tweeted: “Amazing… and he’s just getting started.”

Sophistry at its finest—something I think we may have to get accustomed to for the next four long year.

With regards to the Dow 20,000 and Presidential credit, I thought it might be useful to look back to see how the Dow progressed to this landmark point by looking at its progress through the last eight Presidential terms—all the way back to 32-years ago, 1985. The way that I did this was by looking at where the Dow stood on January 1 of the year each President was sworn into office.

Granted Presidents are sworn in on January 20, but I felt that January 1 provided a reasonable measuring point being nearly two-months after a winning election and only twenty days before each President was sworn in for a new term in office.

The table below provides the results of this historical analysis.