Even Obama’s pump-priming couldn’t avert a miserable week for our cultural zeitgeist portfoli-O.

For the latest installment of the Portfoli-O, click here.

Hope, solidarity, better health care, and a new place for America in the world. These are some of the aspirations America has for the Obama presidency, but if you turn to the personal finance gurus you'll find another aspiration-the making of a quick buck.

From the latest green startup to a major infrastructure play, stock soothsayers from all realms of personal finance have been compiling "Obama portfolios," since before the election result was even known. These are collections of companies from sectors that will benefit from the administration's policies, these analysts say-often because there might be a direct government subsidy dangled in front of the sector.

Builders, agriculture companies, health care providers, and solar energy panel manufacturers all made the cut. Kiplinger's offered Vestas Wind Systems (VWS on the Copenhagen stock exchange), the world's leading supplier of wind turbines. Time listed publicly traded hospital company Community Health Systems (CYH). Yahoo Finance and CNNMoney.com reported on the Obama portfolios of other analysts, touting such stocks as Potash Corp. (POT) and Vulcan Materials (VMC).

Does stock-picking based on policy perceptions work? The evidence suggests not. Remember Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential platform? There was a lot there for infrastructure then, too, as well as other "human capital" investments. But then the administration tacked right, deciding to fight the deficit. Later, Clinton entered into various coalitions with Republicans that probably benefitted the V-chip maker and the school uniform tailor over the cement mixer.

Not only do platforms change in office, but officeholders' impact on individual markets and companies is marginal at best. Slate's Daniel Gross pointed out that the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit was seen as a future gravy train for large pharmaceutical companies. But the Amex pharmaceutical index underperformed the S&P 500 in subsequent years. Other company-specific, macroeconomic, and global factors matter far more than government policies.