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Tag Archives: chancellors

Chancellors and the stock market

Posted on 11 October 2013 by Almanacist

Since 1945 there have been 22 chancellors of the exchequer, 14 of them Conservative and eight Labour.

Which chancellors were the most investor-friendly?

The chart on this page lists the 22 chancellors of the exchequer since 1945 with the years they were in office. For each chancellor, two values are plotted:

  1. the percentage change in the value of the FTSE All-Share Index during their period in office, and
  2. the above value adjusted by annualising, to allow for comparison of chancellors in office for different lengths of time.

Observations

  1. Six chancellors left office with the market lower than when they started: three of these chancellors were Conservative and three were Labour.
  2. The stock market suffered its worst period under the chancellorship of Alistair Darling (although it must be said that he did not inherit the soundest of economies).
  3. The chancellor seeing the greatest rise in the market was Nigel Lawson, the market rose 141% during his time in office. That performance was followed by Denis Healey and Derrick Heathcoat-Amory.
  4. However, looking at the annualised figures we see that the best chancellor for the stock market was Derrick Heathcoat-Amory (who become chancellor the same week that Jerry Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire” was top of the hit parade).

Data

The data for the chart are below.

Chancellor FTAS Rtn(%) FTAS Rtn ann(%)
Hugh Dalton (Lab, 1945-1947) 12.1 5.2
Stafford Cripps (Lab, 1947-1950) -6.1 -2.1
Hugh Gaitskell (Lab, 1950-1951) 12.7 12.5
Rab Butler (Con, 1951-1955) 35.0 8.4
Harold Macmillan (Con, 1955-1957) -2.8 -2.7
Peter Thorneycroft (Con, 1957-1958) -11.4 -11.6
Derrick Heathcoat-Amory (Con, 1958-1960) 82.6 32.4
John Selwyn Lloyd (Con, 1960-1962) -13.2 -6.7
Reginald Maudling (Con, 1962-1964) 22.2 9.8
James Callaghan (Lab, 1964-1967) 20.5 6.6
Roy Jenkins (Lab, 1967-1970) -0.6 -0.2
Ian Macleod (Con, 1970-1970) 0.2 2.5
Anthony Barber (Con, 1970-1974) 9.2 2.5
Dennis Healey (Lab, 1974-1979) 103.5 20.0
Geoffrey Howe (Con, 1979-1983) 57.4 14.0
Nigel Lawson (Con, 1983-1989) 141.4 22.2
John Major (Con, 1989-1990) -4.1 -3.8
Norman Lamont (Con, 1990-1993) 36.6 14.7
Kenneth Clarke (Con, 1993-1997) 52.0 13.2
Gordon Brown  (Lab, 1997-2007) 58.2 5.7
Alistair Darling (Lab, 2007-2010) -17.9 -6.2
George Osborne (Con, 2010-) 26.8 8.0

 

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Posted in Long term, Market, Miscellaneous, News | Tagged chancellors, FTSE All Share, pol

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