It’s Wall Street’s favorite year of the presidential cycle

By STAN CHOE
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — You may be sick of politics, but Wall Street is just getting to its favorite part of the presidential calendar. The third year of the presidential cycle has historically been the best for the stock market. Going back to the start of 1945, the S&P 500 has risen an average of 15.9% during the last full year before an election, compared with an overall average of 9.2% for every year.  Most of that better-than-usual performance is packed into the first half of Year 3.