Wall Street hunkers down as Trump vs. Harris showdown unfolds
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Global investors are digging in for a long week as Tuesday's coin-toss U.S. presidential election could take days to call.
Zoom in: Financial giants, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, are staffing up overnight teams to manage volatility and high-volume activity, Bloomberg reports.
- Retail banks are watching for political unrest that could turn violent.
Zoom out: Some traders who had been building bets in the Trump Trade the past several weeks moved to take some off the table today, shaken by a recent poll.
- Other investors, seeing little certainty over Tuesday's outcome, have been less than eager to pick a winner.
- Instead, to stay defensive, they're boosting cash positions and placing bets against a rapid sell-off and for wide swings.
What they're saying: "The election is so tight and path-dependent that it makes it very difficult to trade," Calvin Yeoh, portfolio manager at Blue Edge Advisors, told Bloomberg.
The intrigue: What happens in congressional races may be just as important.
- Investors view large legislative overhauls as less likely with a divided government.
By the numbers: The median annual gain for the S&P 500 after a presidential election has been 3.7% since 1980, CNBC notes.
- The median performance for the week following the vote is -0.3%.
What we're watching: The longer it takes to determine the winner of the election, the harder it will be for investors to make out what's driving the markets.
- The Fed will announce its next interest rate decision on Thursday, and this week will be another peak week of earnings reports.
