Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., attacked Larry Kudlow in a speech Thursday that included a somewhat puzzling criticism.
“Here is a man who is a cheerleader for Bush-era economics. He ignored the housing bubble and actually recommended — Larry Kudlow, the man who is now going to give the president economic advice — he recommend that Americans buy stock in the fall of 2008 when everyone else saw the economy about to collapse,” the Senate minority leader said on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
It’s true: President Trump’s pick to replace outgoing economic adviser Gary Cohn recommended in an article published on Sept. 3, 2008 by National Review that investors buy stocks. It’s also true that some of Kudlow’s past economic analyses have been extremely wrong.
What I don’t understand is why Schumer decided to focus on Kudlow’s 2008 stock recommendations, especially considering the long-time CNBC host wasn’t entirely wrong.
From a review of the three main stock markets in the U.S. (the S&P 500, the Dow, and the Nasdaq), the recommendation turned out to be a good one.
Here’s a look at one-year (July 2008 to July 2009) and ten-year adjustments in all three indices:
Like @TheStalwart, I feel like I’m missing Sen. Schumer’s point. Larry Kudlow said buy stocks on Sep. 3, 2008. Here’s a one-year (second pic) and a ten-year (third pic) look at S&P, NASDAQ and Dow. What am I missing? pic.twitter.com/q3mr0z2o8n
— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) March 15, 2018
I’m not alone in being somewhat confused by Schumer’s point.
Perhaps the senator was merely repeating a talking point he read in an article published this week by ThinkProgress, which argues Kudlow’s stocks recommendation was a bad one.
“Larry Kudlow has made some astoundingly bad predictions, even for a CNBC pundit,” reads the group’s headline. “The stock market crashed on September 29, 2008, taking with it $1.2 trillion in wealth. The recovery would take years.”
Er, true. But as you can see in the aforementioned one- and ten-year stock trends, if someone took Kudlow’s advice in 2008, they experienced relatively brief suffering in return for extended, sustained gain. Not a bad trade. Further, if you’re an investor who specializes in 401ks or Roth IRAs, the smart play is to buy stocks always (via mutual funds), regardless of whether it’s a bull or bear market.
Again, Kudlow doesn’t always get it right. There are certainly areas where he deserves criticism.
But why single out this 2008 stock market prediction when both the short-term and long-term data shows it was a good one?
