January 6 Capitol Riot — January 6, 2021
Insurrection at the US Capitol; market closed higher
A mob stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to overturn the presidential election. The S&P 500 closed up +0.6% that day. Markets were focused on the Georgia Senate runoff results and fiscal stimulus implications.
What history says
Editorial commentary written by ALAN analysts. Figures cited below are analyst-authored context — they are not derived from the chart above and may reflect different windows or sources.
The S&P 500 gained +0.6% and continued rallying to new all-time highs.
Markets rallied on Democratic Senate victories implying larger fiscal stimulus.
An investor who sold watching live coverage would have sold at the start of a multi-month rally.
However grave the constitutional moment, markets that day priced fiscal arithmetic — Senate results implying stimulus — over the scenes on television. The discipline this history recommends is uncomfortable but consistent: evaluate political events by their path to earnings, rates, and spending, and do not let feelings about the news set the allocation.