A friend wrote on Google Plus last week,

Considering the effect President Obama’s last two speeches had on the Dow Jones Industrial Averages, I wonder if we’ll be looking at a Black Friday style Stock Nosedive?

That is what we call a trigger event (others include tsunamis, terrorist attacks, and travelers with influenza). That and another news story triggered a Big Thought.

The stock market dropped 300 points today in response to the President’s speech.

Then-Senator and presidential-expectee Obama’s “world that stands as one” speech in July of 2008 came at a market inflection point.

The new president made his inaugural address January 20, 2009. The Dow slid. He and Mr. Biden delivered remarks on the Economy in January, 2009. The Dow continued to slide. He spoke of regulation in the financial sector in February. The Dow dropped some more. He made his Innovation and Jobs remarks. The Dow dropped below 7,000.

He stopped talking about important stuff. The market started to recover.

Time passed.

He said “government can … create the conditions for companies to succeed” in April of 2010 and the Dow began to slide again.

Mr. Obama delivered a speech on the national debt in April of 2011. Guess what happened? He was on the stump last month and announced half a trillion in spending just last week.

That preceded that immediate 300 point slide which some pundits say has nothing to do with us and everything to do with Europe.

Here’s the problem. The data is inconclusive.

Oh, sure, I made an interesting case blaming the drop in my 401K on (liberal) presidential speeches but I’m sure some (liberal) pundit can dig through Yahoo finance to compare (conservative) presidential speeches to downward market performance.

I’m thinking we need a better indicator.

I’m thinking Animal Planet; after all, the stock market is represented by the bulls and the bears, right? And that brings me to the second news story.

A bear stole a Prius last week.

The Prius is a hybrid electric car that Toyota calls a “mid-size” sedan. On sale since 1997, the car gets regular EPA, California Air Resources Board (CARB), and Far Green ratings among the cleanest and most efficient vehicles sold. That’s based on smog contributions, toxic emissions, and apparent gas mileage.

Don’t get me started on “apparent gas mileage” and the government finagling of fuel economy figures.

Certain cars have become the darlings of demographic groups. The Subaru is the national car of Vermont (popularly known as the “Subi-truck” although the Forester station wagon is the vehicle of choice). According to epinions, “BMW drivers are bar none, the worst around.” And the Toyota Prius is the darling of the left.

The McCarthy family, on vacation in Lake Tahoe last week, has a story right out of Jellystone Park: a bear stole their car. If they had gone to Central Park, the car thief might have caused less damage.

The bear broke into their car, rummaged around, took off down the hill, and crashed into a nearby yard. Then, like any good car thief, he completely trashed inside of their Prius. “He had ripped out the back seat. There’s nothing left. There’s nothing left inside of our Prius. Gone,” said CeCe McCarthy.

A bear stole a Prius. A bull has never in the history of cars or the stock market (heh) stolen a Prius.

Bears are liberals. Bulls aren’t.

Whoda think it?

Thus concludeth my primer on the stock market.