It's the most wonderful day of the year.

[billryan]

Feel the magic in the air?

It's enough to make kings and vagabonds
Believe the very best.

[Eduardo]

Whichever one of these Jokers we will have as our next President, I just hope there is a clear winner before the end of the night and that we can move on without it going to the courts or any such shenanigans.

[olds442jetaway]

Trump may just pull it off as of this minute Dow is up close to 600 points if it holds by the close, I think he has a good chance if not a great chance to win the election. If he does, the other half of the country that hates him owes me a beer. If he loses I owe the other half of the posters a beer. If it comes to that, I will pay up whoever can get up to Mohegan assuming it doesn’t close soon due to Covid

[FAA]

It’s up 600 because they expect JB and dollar flow!

[billryan]

Trump may just pull it off as of this minute Dow is up close to 600 points if it holds by the close, I think he has a good chance if not a great chance to win the election. If he does, the other half of the country that hates him owes me a beer. If he loses I owe the other half of the posters a beer. If it comes to that, I will pay up whoever can get up to Mohegan assuming it doesn’t close soon due to Covid

Do you honestly believe there is a large segment of the population that will decide which way they vote based on today's market results? Will they wait until the market closes to decide?

[olds442jetaway]

Not just todays, but in recent weeks. In fact, Sunday I was listening to one of the most respected financial advisor shows on the radio. People were calling in saying how happy they were with their finances since Trump got in and their 401ks etc. Besides that, history shows by a huge margin the incumbent will win if the S and P 500 has done well recently. Anyway, past is past and nothing is in stone. I guess we will see. Except for some blips in September, the market has done great. By the way, no line for voting at my local school, but there was earlier this morning

[Eduardo]

I was reading a story over the weekend, and the most "reliable" metric used has traditionally been something like the 6 months performance leading up to the Friday before the election. And based on that and market performance they had Biden winning.

I find it silly though. Had the market closed 15 minutes earlier, the reading would have shown Trump.

The only thing I could maybe believe based on that is... this could be closer than most are predicting, again.

I have to believe that there are far greater forces at play this year than market value. But they also don't claim that the market's value is the cause of the victory, only that it is an indicator. Which is very different.

People may not be voting based on the market value, but many are certainly investing based on how they believe the vote will end up.

[olds442jetaway]

It was just on my car radio news there is the biggest betting in British history going on. One person bet 1 million that Biden will win, and another person bet $5 million that Trump will win

[billryan]

Not just todays, but in recent weeks. In fact, Sunday I was listening to one of the most respected financial advisor shows on the radio. People were calling in saying how happy they were with their finances since Trump got in and their 401ks etc. Besides that, history shows by a huge margin the incumbent will win if the S and P 500 has done well recently. Anyway, past is past and nothing is in stone. I guess we will see. Except for some blips in September, the market has done great. By the way, no line for voting at my local school, but there was earlier this morning

Not counting today, The Dow is down almost 6% for the year. Anyone who thinks that is good for their 401K is delusional. For trumps market performance to beat Obama's, we would be looking at about the Dow passing 40,000. The S&P 500 is up under 2% for the year.

[Eduardo]

Sure, but presidential cycles aren't measured in individual years, and Covid had a massive impact on the market by all accounts.

Trump was already behind Obama before Covid and would never have matched Obama's first 4 years. But we were looking at two very different pictures when they entered office.

I think it's foolish to measure a President's success by the market, and Trump is the only President I recall using it as a measure of his own success so publicly.

But it certainly hasn't been bad from a market perspective, no sense in pretending otherwise (there are other economic concerns worth noting, but not worth getting into here).

Additionally, the market gains have been incredibly uneven. Looking only at the DOW and S&P is very deceiving this year. Almost all of the gains have been in a select few stocks. Much of the market is still hurting severely. But I know that sort of thing may be above most people's (and probably even Trump's) head. We like our simple DOW and S&P numbers but the real financial picture is much more complicated than that.