“People are hiring again”, any data to back this up? BLS seems to disagree:

- The United States added almost 3 million jobs in 2014, 2.7 million in 2015 and 2.2 million in 2016.

- The U.S. economy added 2 million jobs in 2017

http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/05/news/economy/december-2017-j...

It's startling what my 401k/IRA did from 2012 to 2014: https://imgur.com/a/M7PZn2m

What's your point?

> then immediately jumping, once the election results were in.

So your long-term retirement investment fund which should span over 20+ years increased somewhat drastically over a small percentage of it's perceived lifetime. Why is that superbly beneficial for long term fund performance?

> Even outside the market, people are hiring again

When did they stop hiring? Source data?

The stock market has being going sup since 2009 or so. Sometimes a little faster, sometimes a little slower. Look at a logarithmic chart and you will see that trend from 2009 to now. Same for unemployment. The rate has steadily gone down from 2010 on. There was no turn around in 2016.

You must have had your 401k with a terrible bank then.

>Essentially flat for years before

You must be a terrible investor then, the DOW under Obama went from ~7,000 to 18,000, unemployment fell from 10% to 5%, nearly 20 million gained healthcare under the ACA, and the economy gained 11.6 million jobs. Obama's numbers blow Trump's away.