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The S&P 500 had its best rally of election week since 1932. And despite a sharp pullback on Monday, the Dow Jones was up nearly 12% in November, on track for its best month since January 1987.
“In terms of Biden bad for the market, we can already see the opposite to be true,” said Daryl Jones, director of research at Hedgeye Risk Management.
Wall Street went from Trump
There is no doubt that Trump’s tax cuts and deregulation have helped boost markets. His trade war with China and his love of tariffs, however, were clearly negative for stocks.
“Biden shows us that from a business and economic standpoint, it’s likely to be moderate,” Jones said.
“The fear was that there would be a seriously contested election,” said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco. “Certainly this is disputed, but it is recognized that there is very, very little chance that President Trump will actually succeed in his attempt to overturn the election results.”
Gridlock beats the blue wave
Democrats are expected to win both races in Georgia’s second round to take control of the Senate, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris breaking a 50/50 draw.
A divided government in 2021 means Biden won’t be able to raise taxes on businesses and individuals, a huge relief for investors. It will also limit Democrats’ ability to pass sweeping climate legislation.
Markets focus on game-changing vaccines
But investors are looking beyond the worsening pandemic and instead focusing on huge advances in vaccines.
“Vaccine news is a real game changer,” Hooper said. “The stock market has this great ability to look through the immediate headwinds to a future that looks brighter.”
Now there is greater confidence in a stronger economic recovery in 2021 that will include hard hit sectors like travel.
Bank of America economists predict that global GDP will grow 5.4% in 2021, the best year since 1973. US GDP is expected to grow 4.5%, the highest since 1999.
“A year of vaccine and not of virus, a year of reopening and not of lockdown, a year of recovery and not of recession,” Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at Bank of America, wrote on Monday.
The gap between rich and poor is widening
The market boom sends a positive signal that can make nervous consumers and businesses spend instead of stopping. This, in turn, can stimulate the real economy.
And the soaring stock market is likely widening the gap between the rich and the poor, as well-off families have a lot more skin in the game.
It doesn’t matter who owns the stocks, the markets cannot go up indefinitely.
At some point, vaccine optimism will be taken into account. The epic rebound on Wall Street – the S&P 500 is up 61% from its March 23 low – has pushed market valuations up to levels not seen since the dot-com bubble.
Hartnett of Bank of America argued that it would be “ludicrous to think that big stock market gains here” won’t cause backlash, including higher inflation, higher taxes, and higher bond yields. This is why he advises his clients to “sell the vaccine in force in the months to come”.
“We expect early price spikes at 21,” Hartnett wrote.
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