People started asking me about a year ago what the election would do to stock prices. I didn’t know then, and I still don’t.

Over the years, I’ve read many articles describing how markets fare under Democratic and Republican administrations. I’ve also done the research myself and written several of those articles.

Last year, I even wrote about what happened in the year leading up to the presidential election because people expressed so much concern about it. If you felt that anxiety, please note the year-to-date returns so far this year, even though the election looks like a toss-up to me.

Last week, I saw a chart about elections that supported my conclusion: You should stay invested regardless of which party controls the White House.

The chart showed the growth of $1 under three scenarios:

1. When Republicans are in the White House, buy the S&P 500 and hold cash when Democrats are in office.
2. The second scenario was to do the opposite.
3. The third scenario was to stay invested the whole time.

Here’s the punchline: the third option was best. The first two strategies involve market timing with the President’s party as the signal. In the first or second strategy, you’re invested in cash for decades, and it’s hard to beat the market when you’re in cash that much of the time.

I’m not showing the results because they are effectively the same as when I wrote this article in 2016!

Thanks to the internet, you can read that article here because it’s been online since then. I reread it just now, and it’s pretty good (if I don’t say so myself). Good enough, even, to copy my conclusion and reuse it today:

Finally, as much as you might not like a certain President or their party, America and her markets have always made it through every adversity, and I fully expect that no matter what happens this November, our nation will continue to persevere and prosper, even if the trajectory isn’t a perfectly straight line.