One year later, here's how the Trump stock market rally compares with those of past presidents

Since last year's election, stock market investors have been betting big that President Donald Trump

will enact policies that will boost corporate profits, cut taxes, slash regulations and sustain a postelection rally not seen in decades.Now, many investors are still waiting for the White House and GOP Congress to deliver on Trump's campaign promises. At the first anniversary of Trump's Nov. 8 election, the subsequent stock market's gain ranks No. 3 in first-term, postelection markets since Dwight Eisenhower won the 1952 election. Over these decades, though, stock market rallies in the early days of a new administration aren't necessarily a great predictor of investor returns over the full term of the incoming president. The stock market's jubilant response to Trump's election, for example, was initially compared to the reaction to Ronald Reagan's 1980 defeat of Jimmy Carter. Both Trump and Reagan campaigned on a platform that promised tax cuts and sweeping deregulation, a prospect that investors assume will help companies boost profits. But Reagan's postelection rally fizzled within weeks, thanks to an aggressive series of interest rates hikes in late 1980 aimed at snuffing out double-digit inflation. Between Election Day and the end of the year, short-term rates surged from 14 percent to above 20 percent.
Stock investors were ultimately rewarded by the Reagan administration, which followed through on its promises with major deregulation of industries such as telecommunications. But those returns were sharply curtailed by the crash of 1987, which wiped out more than 25 percent of the market's value in a week. The biggest one-year market rally for a change in administration followed the 1960 election of President John F. Kennedy, which accompanied a strong rebound in economic growth. But the market tanked in the months preceding the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. President Barack Obama had the worst first 100 days of any postwar president, as the stock market and the economy were in the throes of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. A year after Obama's election, the market had begun a rally that lifted stocks back into positive territory. WATCH: Trump says he's the reason the market's been so successful (Correction: An earlier version of the first chart included incorrect values for the gains in two-term presidents' first terms. Those values have been corrected.)