Trader’s Narrative

Here’s another indicator which dovetails nicely with everything else we’ve seen measuring the sentiment of the US consumer:

Source: Gallop Poll

First of all, who exactly are these people that are satisfied with things now? 7% is 21 million people!

In any case, the last two times that American’s were this unhappy during election time, the results were bad for the incumbent party. Change is a tough proposition for us humans. We much prefer the status quo. But when times are really tough, then we begrudgingly accept the need for change.

I was in Spain (but not in Madrid) when they had their version of 9/11. That tragedy totally changed the outcome of the elections. Before that day the polls were expecting a total crushing defeat for Zapatero but in less than a week it was the opposite.

Getting back to the chart, in 1980 Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter and in 1992 Bill Clinton defeated George H. Bush. You can already see this reflected in polls which put Obama way ahead of McCain.