Since last year's election, stock market investors have been betting big that President Donald Trump will enact policies that will boost corporate profits, cut taxes, slash regulations and sustain a postelection rally not seen in decades.
Now, many investors are still waiting for the White House and GOP Congress to deliver on Trump's campaign promises.
At the first anniversary of Trump's Nov. 8 election, the subsequent stock market's gain ranks No. 3 in first-term, postelection markets since Dwight Eisenhower won the 1952 election.
Over these decades, though, stock market rallies in the early days of a new administration aren't necessarily a great predictor of investor returns over the full term of the incoming president.
The stock market's jubilant response to Trump's election, for example, was initially compared to the reaction to Ronald Reagan's 1980 defeat of Jimmy Carter. Both Trump and Reagan campaigned on a platform that promised tax cuts and sweeping deregulation, a prospect that investors assume will help companies boost profits.
But Reagan's postelection rally fizzled within weeks, thanks to an aggressive series of interest rates hikes in late 1980 aimed at snuffing out double-digit inflation. Between Election Day and the end of the year, short-term rates surged from 14 percent to above 20 percent.