STORY: Among those dramas: the indictment of former President Donald Trump and the party divisions over raising the U.S. debt ceiling.

"In terms of a former president being indicted," said Stovall, "certainly one might go back to the Nixon era for some sort of comparison. But I think the focus really was more on the economy itself. And back then, we were in a period of recession, high inflation, high interest rates and so the market itself ended up declining more so because of the economic backdrop rather than the political turmoil."