The Obama Presidential Center opens Thursday in Chicago. Political elites will attend. White House alums will attend. Donors will attend. Business leaders will attend. They call this "commemorating a launch." Normal people call it "a fundraiser with better architecture."
The timing is accidental, we're told. Crucial elections loom. Democratic glitterati need face time with checkbooks. But sure, they're really there for the ribbons and the speeches about hope. They flew to Chicago in October because they love museums that much.
Here's what a presidential center does for your portfolio: nothing. Here's what Democratic political glitterati do for your risk-adjusted returns: also nothing. You could spend Thursday analyzing this event's impact on equity markets. You could also spend Thursday teaching your cat Portuguese. Same outcome, less travel.
The retail trader at home sees this headline and thinks it means something. He opens his app. He searches "Obama stocks." He finds an ETF that holds municipal bonds in Illinois. He buys seventeen shares. He tells his wife he's playing the political angle. His wife starts updating her LinkedIn profile.
Presidential centers are where political careers go to get taxidermy. You build a monument to yourself, invite everyone who ever wrote you a check, and pretend you're not coordinating strategy for November. The center probably has an exhibit about grassroots organizing. The irony dies of loneliness in a display case next to a pen from 2009.
Business leaders attend because they have to. Donors attend because they want to. The difference matters to neither your brokerage account nor mine. But some guy in Cleveland will read this headline, assume it's bullish for construction stocks, and buy calls on a company that makes decorative concrete. That's not market analysis. That's a cry for help with better leverage.
Photo by Jack Kolpitcke on Unsplash
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