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One of the most hyped market-moving events of the year has arrived.
Americans have headed to the polls Tuesday to vote in a presidential election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. The outcome could have an impact on financial markets for the rest of the year and beyond.
For the broader market, Wall Street strategists say the biggest risk would be a contested election in which the result isn’t clear for weeks.
“A close, contested election is the main tail risk we see for US equities in the days and months ahead, though we also suspect that a Democratic sweep could also catch US equity investors off guard,” RBC Capital Markets Lori Calvasina wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday morning.
To Calvasina’s point, market strategists have been discussing the potential unwinding of a so-called Trump trade should the former president not win on Tuesday night. In the past month, as betting market odds moved in favor of Trump, certain sectors have rallied in the belief that the former president would boost those businesses’ prospects if elected. For example: financials and cryptocurrencies.
On Friday, when a fresh poll showed Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa, some of those trades began to reverse. Bitcoin had hit a recent high of $71,000 per coin before sliding briefly below 67,000 after the poll was released. Similarly, the Financials sector (XLF) was the second-worst-performing sector on Monday, that’s after leading the 11 sectors in October potentially on the belief that Trump’s policies would be more favorable for banks.
Conversely, strategists have pointed to other trades that have lagged over the past month and could outperform if Harris wins. In a note to clients on Sunday night, Morgan Stanley chief investment officer Mike Wilson wrote that consumer goods companies, which Trump’s tariff policy could hurt, have been pricing in potential negative impacts leading into the election.
“We see tariff-exposed consumer equities and renewables outperforming in the short term,” Wilson wrote regarding a Harris win scenario where Congress ends up in a Red-Blue split. “Financials, Industrials and commodity-sensitive industries could underperform initially.”
Wilson added that a split Congress could limit how long-lasting any of the moves are.
“In our view, market leadership in the divided Congress outcomes will likely come down to the business cycle, the Fed’s reaction function, and industry-specific fundamentals following the election,” Wilson wrote.
There has been plenty of debate over what’s been driving equity markets for the past month as investors have digested positive third quarter earnings, the start of the Federal Reserve’s easing cycle, and a string of data releases showing the US economy is still growing solidly.
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