MANAMA: The legacy of the Obama administration is a steady recovery in of the economy after the global financial crisis which also boosted US and global stock markets. One feature of the recovery in the last couple of years have been a steady and healthy rate of job creation, according to Mihir Kapadia, CEO and Founder of Sun Global Investments.
“Over the longer period, unemployment dropped from around 7.2% under Bush to 4.7% under Obama, Dow Jones was under 7950 when Obama took office and it is now above 20,000. The US GDP for Q3 2008 was down 0.3% under Bush while the Q3 2016 GDP under Obama is up 3.5%. In a large part, this reflects timing as Obama took over at a time when the economy was bottoming out and stock markets were at a nadir,” regarding the market legacy under Obama administration: non-farm payroll data, he said.
“Nevertheless, there has been a steady and stable recovery over the last eight years and the cumulative effect of this is that a dovish and cautious Fed is now finally turning bullish on the US economy and more confident on growth. While the fed raised rates in December, and have indicated plans for three more rate hikes into 2017, they are still perhaps uncertain as to how to incorporate the impact of place Trump in their outlook projections. This means there is a risk to confidence if the new administration proves to be unpredictable or strongly pursues policies which threaten growth.”