First-Year Trump 2.0 Stock Gains Lag Trump 1.0, Obama and Biden

Axios reports that during President Trump’s first year of his second term, the S&P 500 gained 15.7%, well below the 24.1% rise in his first term’s opening year and also trailing the first-year gains under Presidents Biden (19.3%) and Obama (35.9%). Using data from Financial Modeling Prep through last Friday, the piece shows that while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq also rose—13.5% and 19.8% respectively—their performance still underperformed the first-year Trump 1.0 rally and, in the Dow’s case, Obama’s huge post-crisis rebound. The article notes that U.S. stocks suffered a sharp sell-off on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 dropping more than 2%, underscoring that markets are now more skittish in the face of Trump’s aggressive tariffs, foreign interventions and Fed‑fighting rhetoric. On social media, partisan voices are spinning the numbers either as proof that Trump 2.0 is "still strong" or that his second-term economic gamble isn’t delivering as promised, but the hard data show a clear step down from the returns investors saw in his first term’s opening year. For Americans with 401(k)s and IRAs, the comparison matters because Trump has repeatedly sold his market record as a core argument for his presidency; the first-year scoreboard of Trump 2.0 versus Trump 1.0, Obama and Biden complicates that pitch.