As President Obama goes...so goes the market?

Jewel Samad | AFP | Getty Images

President Barack Obama

These are not happy days for President Barack Obama, and if history holds up the misery in Washington could create misery on Wall Street.

Economist Eliot Janeway (1913-1993) is credited with saying, "When the president is in trouble, the stock market is in trouble."

That's a bad omen because "clearly the president is in trouble," said Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James.

"Those troubles began with the Benghazi scandal, escalated with the (Department of Justice) spying on news reporter James Rosen, followed by the IRS scandal, and now we have Syria," Saut said in his morning note to clients Wednesday. "In fact, we are even alienating two of our steadfast allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, whose silence on our Syrian strategy has been deafening."

(Read more: Marc Faber's three reasons why a plunge is coming)

In addition to Obama's woes, Saut was unimpressed with the quick start out of the gate Tuesday, with the Dow Jones industrials gaining more than 100 points shortly after the open, and even less impressed with the market surrendered all but 24 of those points by closing time.

Saut is long-term bullish but believes the market is in for a substantial correction.

The "spiked up opening looked a lot like a massive short-covering move by the fast money crowd that was forced to cover their short-sales on the no Syrian missile strike over the weekend," Saut said.

He said the market is in an oversold condition that will be prone to rally attempts.

So is there really a correlation between presidential approval ratings in the market?

Historically speaking, yes.

(Read more: Sen. Johnson: President has backed us into a corner)

A few years back, Bespoke Investment Group compared presidential approval ratings to movements in the S&P 500, and the charts featured here tell a pretty strong story going back to Harry Truman.

That's bad news for Obama if current trends hold up.

He's currently near the lowest numbers in his presidency—at 44 percent, according to the most recent Gallup numbers, as the tensions in Syria swirl and another likely bruising debt ceiling battle with Republicans awaits.

(Read more: Risk on: Investors ignore August declines)

If there's good news it's that the market managed to gain even as Obama's approval has been on a steady trajectory lower pretty much throughout his presidency. There also was little correlation between George W. Bush's rating and the markets.

It's also probably worth noting that Eliot Janeway, as a sort of early-era Marc Faber, was known as "Calamity Janeway" for his consistently pessimistic views.

"Not surprisingly, there is a strong relationship between the stock market's performance (which reflects the economy) and how a President is viewed," Bespoke said in its analysis. "Presidents who were in office while the stock market was strong typically have been more popular and vice versa. In recent history, however, the relationship has been less consistent."

—By CNBC's Jeff Cox. Follow him @JeffCoxCNBCcom on Twitter.