Morgan Stanley skriver i en vurderingen af det amerikanske valg, hvor resultatet måske først komme efter flere dage eller uger på grund af en ekstrem stigning i antallet af brevstemmer, at de efterfølgende stimulipakker vil være vigtigere for aktiemarkedet end selve valgresultater. Derfor bør investorerne ikke reagere for hurtigt. Tiden vil være volatil. Stimulipakker bliver afgørende for, hvordan økonomien udvikler sig i 2021 og dermed markedet. Mens andre kommer med kursprognoser for forskellige scenarier, afholder Morgan Stanley sig fra nærmere prognoser for kursudviklingen.
It’s the Results That Count
How will markets react if final U.S. election results take days or weeks?
In this Thoughts on the Market series, Michael Zezas offers perspective on how U.S. public policy affects equity and fixed income markets, including trade tensions, infrastructure and government policy.
With the U.S. election just about a month away, there’s evidence piling up to support our view that investors need to prepare to not know the results on election night.
As we initially flagged from our survey of key battleground states, voters appear poised to vote by mail in record numbers, and it appears likely that most of those voters will favor Democrats on the ballot.
This puts in play a dynamic where the early vote count on election night in key states, which may reflect in-person voting first, may show results favoring Republicans, but then over time that lead could erode.
Markets could naturally struggle with this uncertainty, swinging back and forth between pricing in Democratic and Republican policy paths.
If that sounds far fetched, consider what some swing states are already reporting. In Pennsylvania, over 2 million people have requested to vote by mail, a 2000% increase over the total requests in 2016. In Wisconsin requests are 6x higher than all of 2016. In Georgia 5x, North Carolina 4.5x, and the list goes on. It all adds up to a very slow vote counting process.
So what’s an investor to do? Expect uncertainty, and volatility, but resist the temptation to react too quickly.
Markets can and will make mistakes in situations like these, as investors’ perceptions of what a ‘good’ election outcome is can often be at odds with how the market performs in the months and years after a result is known.
The guidance from our colleagues continues to be to look through the noise, and instead to the medium term trajectory of U.S. policy and its impact on the economy.
Most outcomes, in our view, ultimately will result in fiscal support for the economy. This should help the U.S. continue its recovery from the COVID recession deep into 2021, and equity prices should move along with it.
