Is There a July 8 Effect for Wall Street?

What is it with July 8 and the general financial and political world? There have been a handful of events on this date in history, including some that deal with issues we're still debating, 100 years later. This Date In History

• July 8, 1839, Industrialist and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller was born. When you adjust for inflation, he is almost certainly the richest person in history. He was well-positioned at the end of the Civil War to dominate the oil market, and he did just that. He was America's first billionaire.



• July 8, 1887, The first issue of the Wall Street Journal was published. The newspaper would go on to become the number one in terms of newspaper circulation in America.
• July 8, 1896, William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech advocating bimetalism at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Ron Paul silently wept.
• July 8, 1932, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit its lowest level of the Great Depression, bottoming out at 41.22, or roughly 40% of the price of one share of LinkedIn LNKD.
• July 8, 1947, Some kind of alien/UFO crash landed at Roswell, New Mexico. Republicans allegedly immediately demanded he be deported, and that President Truman cut income taxes to prevent future UFO crashings. Democrats cut the alien a welfare check and handed him a bag of medical marijuana. Libertarians insisted that the private market could handle an alien invasion better than the government.