Most of the damage comes from a handful of years between 1962 and 1974
The current social media buzz about midterm election years and market drops is actually backed by real data.
Since 1950, looking at the maximum drop within each calendar year across all 19 midterm years shows an average drop of 17.5% (with a median of 16.6%). By comparison, the other 57 non-midterm years averaged a decline of just 12.4%.
The math itself is completely accurate. Midterm years historically experience sharper intra-year pullbacks.
| Group | Years | Average | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Midterm years | 19 | -17.5% | -16.6% |
| Every other year | 57 | -12.4% | -9.9% |
The main issue with comparing the 17.5% average midterm drop to the 12.4% non-midterm average is that the midterm years between 1962 and 1974 heavily skew the data. Most of the sharpest declines happened over 45 years ago.
| Year | Worst decline | Year’s return |
|---|---|---|
| 1950 | -14.0% | +22.6% |
| 1954 | -4.4% | +44.2% |
| 1958 | -4.4% | +36.9% |
| 1962 | -26.4% | -11.1% |
| 1966 | -22.2% | -12.9% |
| 1970 | -25.9% | -0.9% |
| 1974 | -37.6% | -29.8% |
| 1978 | -13.6% | +2.4% |
| 1982 | -16.6% | +14.6% |
| 1986 | -9.4% | +15.5% |
| 1990 | -19.9% | -8.2% |
| 1994 | -8.9% | -1.3% |
| 1998 | -19.3% | +26.1% |
| 2002 | -33.8% | -23.8% |
| 2006 | -7.7% | +11.8% |
| 2010 | -16.0% | +11.0% |
| 2014 | -7.4% | +12.4% |
| 2018 | -19.8% | -7.0% |
| 2022 | -25.4% | -20.0% |
5 of those 6 largest midterm declines coincided with major global disruptions, a credit crunch, the Vietnam War, the end of the Bretton Woods system, the oil embargo, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Whatever those volatile years had in common, it certainly wasn’t the congressional calendar.
While social media loves scary headlines, using the midterm cycle to predict a market drop confuses correlation with causation. Historical pullbacks had far more to do with major economic shocks and geopolitical crises than the political calendar.
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