A public view of Obama's economic policies

I'm not sure why there has been a lot of criticism over Obama's economic policies lately, but recently I've seen many people complain about the way that he has handled the economy and seen people go as far to say that Obama is actually ruining the economy. Many of these opinions come right wingers who simply want to bash any Democratic president.But these arguments hold no merit whatsoever and never have any credible evidence to back the claim.

The best forward looking indicator of economic activity is the stock market. Economists call this a "leading indicator" since it is a prediction of near term future activity. Measures like unemployment are lagging indicators - they simply reflect recent movements in the economy. Stock prices are based on professional money managers forecasts of FUTURE activity. In fact, investors support their predictions by "putting their money where their mouths are" - when they think things are looking good, they buy stocks.

Three common measures of stock market activity are the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and Nasdaq. Without getting into much detail, these indexes simply capture different segments of the stock market. Dow and S&P look at large companies while Nasdaq looks at newer and smaller companies. Many right wingers might try to argue (without any supporting evidence) that Obama's decisions are bad for small business. To look at small businesses, I also review the Russell 2000 which captures the stock performance for the smallest publicly traded companies (not exactly Mom & Pop shops, but nonetheless an indicator of small business performance).

Let's look at what the investing public feels about Obama's economic policies. I provide some historical reference too, not to bash Bush, but to give people some perspective.

Dow: 10,578 in Jan 2001; 7,949 in Jan 2009; 9,211 today (+16%)
S&P: 1,343 in Jan 2001; 805 in Jan 2009; 991 today (+23%)
Nasdaq: 2,758 in Jan 2001; 1,441 in Jan 2009; 1,989 today (+38%)
Russell 2000: 490 in Jan 2001; 433 in Jan 2009; 558 today (+29%)

The bottom line is that the investing public is literally making a bet that Obama's decisions are good for the economy. I'm interested in a Bill O'Reilly "no spin zone" explanation as to why people would be buying stock if they truly believe the economy is ruined.