Presidential race tight as Election Day dawns in America – what’s moving markets
Investing.com – After months of heavy campaigning and heated rhetoric, it is Election Day in the US on Tuesday. Americans will now choose between Donald Trump, the Republican Party candidate, or his Democratic Party rival Kamala Harris — with both of their policy plans poised to have potentially massive implications for investors. Yet the race remains extremely tight, particularly in crucial battleground states, meaning the outcome remains far from a certainty.
1. US Election Day
Many Americans will head to the polls on Tuesday to cast their ballots in the US presidential election, in what is shaping up to be one of the closest races in modern political history.
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were campaigning furiously across key battleground in the final day before the vote as they tried to secure any last-minute support. In her final rally in the all-important state of Pennsylvania, Harris argued America was ready for a “fresh start.” Trump, meanwhile, urged his backers to vote in his last event in Michigan, another state with huge election implications.
Trump and Harris are locked in a virtual tie heading into Election Day, especially in the crucial swing states that will likely heavily impact the outcome of the election.
Investors will be closely monitoring the returns, with the winner’s policies set to potentially have a major influence on everything from the oil and gas sector and Big Tech to electric vehicles and financial services.
2. Futures muted
US stock futures hovered just above the flatline on Tuesday, with markets awaiting the election results, gauging a raft of quarterly corporate earnings, and eyeing an upcoming Federal Reserve interest rate decision.
By 03:30 ET (08:30 GMT), the Dow futures contract was mostly unchanged, S&P 500 futures had risen by 3 points or 0.1%, and Nasdaq 100 futures had inched up by 28 points or 0.1%.
The main averages on Wall Street ended slightly lower on Monday, as uncertainty clouded over a week filled with possibly market-moving events. A poll suggesting Harris held an advantage in the typically conservative-leaning state of Iowa hit so-called “Trump trades” like the US dollar and Bitcoin. Her chances of winning also improved on online betting markets, which traders have been using to assess election expectations.
“The narrative is shifting in a pro-Harris direction […] but given that the race still seems extremely close, people are reluctant to have on massive Harris or Trump trades,” analysts at Vital Knowledge said in a note.
3. Boeing workers vote to end strike
Striking Boeing (NYSE:BA) workers voted in favor of the planemaker’s latest contract offer on Monday evening, ending a long-running labor action that had severely disrupted production for nearly two months.
Local media reports from Seattle said 59% of striking workers voted in favor of a new contract, which will entail wage hikes of 38% over the next four years. But the contract still did not include the return of a defined-benefit pension plan scrapped a decade ago.
Monday’s vote was the third time the workers voted on a contract offer from Boeing, having rejected two prior proposals. Roughly 33,000 machinists on the US West Coast have been on strike.
The work stoppage began on September 13 and halted most of Boeing’s plane production while also costing the firm about $100 million a day in lost revenue.
4. Chinese stocks, Bitcoin rise ahead of election
Chinese stocks advanced on Tuesday, outperforming other Asian markets, as investors assessed the US election and data showing faster-than-expected growth in China’s services sector in October.
The Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 jumped by 2.5% and the Shanghai Composite rose 2.3%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 2.0%. Comments from China’s Premier Li Qiang that included a vow to further open up the country’s economy also bolstered sentiment.
Still, regional markets in Asia took middling cues from the negative session on Wall Street, with anticipation over a tight race between Trump and Harris keeping investors on edge.
Elsewhere, the price of Bitcoin increased, paring back losses from the prior week. The world’s most popular digital token, which has become somewhat of a proxy for Trump’s chances after the former president positioned himself as a champion of the cryptocurrency industry, had been dented in the prior session by the unexpected Iowa poll.
5. Oil steadies
Oil prices stabilized Tuesday, after the previous session’s strong gains, with the proximity to the extremely tight US presidential election limiting trading ranges.
By 03:30 ET, the Brent contract gained 0.2% to $75.22 per barrel, while U.S. crude futures (WTI) traded 0.2% higher at $71.58 a barrel.
Both benchmarks had registered gains of over 2% on Monday after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, announced that it will again delay a planned output hike of 180,000 barrels per day by at least a month.
This was the second time OPEC+ has extended its 2.2 million bpd cut, illustrating how concerned the producing countries are about global demand.
