2016-11-07

MacroView: It's All About The US Presidential Election on Tuesday

MacroView | © DomainMondo.com
Domain Mondo's weekly review of  macro economic and investing news:
The End Is Nigh | NYTimes.com"... the first day of her Senate confirmation hearings for secretary of state is the day she registered her server domain name: clintonemail.com. It was a reckless and entitled move that drew the F.B.I. into the election and set off a frenzy among House Republicans ... In the hacked emails, the candidate’s advisers Neera Tanden and John Podesta recoil from the Hillary henchmen. When Brock attacked Bernie Sanders about his health during the primaries, Tanden worried about Hillary’s trust in the “kind of a nut bar” Brock: “Hillary. God. Her instincts are suboptimal.” About Blumenthal, the Hillary consigliere who helped smear Monica Lewinsky and was part of the ethically blurry Clinton Inc., Podesta said to Tanden: “It always amazes me that people like Sid either completely lack self-awareness or self-respect. Maybe both. Will you promise to shoot me if I ever end up like that?”... even Chelsea was concerned about the foundation’s ethical morass. The problem with Donald Trump is: We don’t know which of the characters he has created he would bring to the Oval Office. The trouble with Hillary Clinton is: We do know. Nobody gets less paranoid in the White House."--by Maureen Dowd (emphasis added)
MacroView Feature • No matter where you live or whether you can vote in the U.S. Presidential Election which concludes Tuesday, November 8th, this coming week's macro economic event is the outcome of that election. As reported just 2 days ago:
"... retreat of the stock market ahead of the 2016 election continued Friday, with the market falling for a ninth straight day. Wall Street is now in its longest period of decline in more than three decades [since 1980 when Ronald Reagan won over Jimmy Carter]. Investors continue to focus on the U.S. presidential election, which has become too close for comfort for some investors ... " Translation: Wall Street thought the fix was in and this year's election would be a Hillary Clinton Coronation. A proven stock market metric (86% accuracy since 1928), the S&P 500 index, is signaling Donald Trump will win the election."
What happens if the S&P 500 is right, and Trump wins? Many expect a Brexit-like selloff in the stock market, which like Brexit, may be a buying opportunity. The "Bond King" Jeffrey Gundlach, who still thinks Trump is going to win, is predicting a Trump administration will provide fiscal stimulus in the form of  infrastructure spending which should be a positive for the economy. However, unlike others, Gundlach does not believe the election outcome to be particularly important, in terms of the market, since in his view a Clinton administration would also engage in fiscal stimulus spending.

Watch below the Financial Times video interview of Stephen Moore, Donald Trump's senior economic advisor, about the Republican candidate's trade and tax policies.

Trump's economic plan:

Video above published Nov 4, 2016: FT.com's Ed Luce goes head-to-head with Stephen Moore, Donald Trump's senior economic advisor, about the Republican candidate's trade and tax policies.

Where do we stand going into the Election on Tuesday? Here's one scenario (of many):

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com
Map above: Clinton 213 vs Trump 230 electoral votes, with 95 electoral votes in "toss up" states (shown in gray). Remember the Presidential Election is determined by Electoral College votes which total 538, not the popular vote totals. The winner needs at least 270 electoral votes. If the above map holds true when results come in Tuesday evening, Trump can win by gaining 40 additional electoral votes, e.g., Florida + Pennsylvania would put him over the top at 279 electoral votes. To create your own map click on the link above or go to: Create Your Own President Map | RealClearPolitics.com. For more on the Electoral College, see video at the bottom of this post.

Trump's schedule for the last 2 days of the campaign (Sunday and Monday), indicates he's hitting most of the swing states in play plus more: Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan (2 stops), Pennsylvania (2 stops), Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, and New Hampshire.

• Even if Trump doesn't win, the issues he raised are not going away and have already had an impact. See, e.g., International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde: Globalization has to work for all--Bloomberg.com.

•  Likewise, Trump's supporters are not just going to go away. For example, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel defends his most contrarian move yet--supporting Trump:
“The millions of people who vote for Trump are not doing it because of the worst things he said or did,” Mr. Thiel said. “That’s ridiculous. The Americans who are voting for Trump are doing it because they judge the situation of the country to be urgent. We’re at such a crucial point that you have to overlook personal characteristics ... San Francisco, Manhattan and Washington, D.C., are doing well, but the presidential campaign has laid bare the angst of many other places. Feelings of decline are rampant. “Most of the millennials have lower expectations than their baby boomer parents,” Mr. Thiel said. “Where I differ from others in Silicon Valley is in thinking that you can’t fence yourself off. If it continues, it will ultimately be bad for everybody.” And if Clinton wins? “There will be a very big need to push back on the sort of happy but misleading consensus about things,” Mr. Thiel said. “There will be an important role for me and others to somehow play in speaking truth to power.”--NYTimes.com
•  No matter the outcome Tuesday, remember after voting, that the actual outcome is beyond your control. What you can control is your own behavior, and how you respond to events, which in the final analysis, may matter much more than the event itself. So don't fear events that are outside of your own control. Instead, pay attention to your own responses and behavior.

•  November 8 is election day in the U.S.--How the U.S. elects its President:


-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo


DISCLAIMER

Domain Mondo archive