The US Stock Market Fell 39% During Watergate

During Watergate and the lengthy process of getting Richard Nixon to resign, political instability weighed all sorts of havoc on the US economy with the S&P 500 falling from a high of 142, when Nixon assumed his second term in January 1974, to a low of 86 just after his August 9, 1974 resignation.

Watergate involved a crime and a tremendous breech of the public’s trust, and a significant erosion of the business climate and market values.

As difficult as Watergate was for the US, it did not involve the election of a President without political experience. It did not involve an assertion that the an adverse power interfered with an election, an assertion of collusion or an assertion of a coverup. It did not involve a Republican Congress so subservient to a President that all checks and balances inherent in the government needed to be quickly reestablished and strengthened, at the public’s insistence, for impeachment proceedings to begin.

The US likely faces a difficult and uncertain next couple of years as the entire process around Trump, and the 2016 election, is sorted out. History shows us that the stock market is unlikely to escape these challenges ahead without real damage.

See the best savings rates here.