Election 2024

Final Push For Candidates

Battleground states like Pennsylvania are a focus.

Both sides are trying to make one final push prior to tomorrow’s Election Day. Kamala Harris held her final rally in the state of Michigan last night, however, she’s far from done.

Today she is making three different stops in must-win Pennsylvania, finishing in Philadelphia, where she is expected to be joined by Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga, and other celebrities. She also posted a video yesterday urging people to get out and vote tomorrow, as well as a two-minute ad aimed at undecided voters who were watching the NFL on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has stated that their final stops are data driven - choosing places they believe they can drive voter turnout. Trump will be in three different states today: North Carolina, Pennsylvania and, lastly, Michigan - three huge states for this election. He’ll be in Grand Rapids, Michigan for Midnight this evening, which is where he has ended all of his presidential campaigns. 

One of Trump’s final messages yesterday was, “if you don’t vote, you’re stupid.” Capeesh? 

Trump plans to spend election night at a watch party in West Palm Beach, Florida. Meanwhile, Harris will be at her headquarters in Washington, D.C. for Election Day.

The 5 States that Will Decide the Election

While every vote matters, these 5 swing states should be the difference in tomorrows election.

We’re just one day away from Election Day, for what it is anticipated to be one of the closest races this country has seen… which will most likely be decided by the five swing states. 

According to a new poll by UMass Lowell/YouGov, former president Donald Trump is leading Vice President Kamala Harris by two percentage points in North Carolina. 74% of those surveyed in the state reported feeling that the country has been on the wrong track, with 57% disapproving of the current administration. 

49% said Trump was better positioned to handle the economy, 48% said he would be best to handle the conflict in the Middle East and 52% said he’d best to handle immigration - all the highest percentages. 

Meanwhile, in Michigan, Harris holds a slight four-point lead, according to the latest UMass poll. However, 66% of those surveyed still said the country is on the wrong track. This survey also gave the edge to Trump on handling the economy (46%).

Harris also holds the lead in Pennsylvania, by one point, according to the UMass poll. This poll also favored Trump when it came to handling the economy (50%).

Harris’ largest lead, according to the UMass polls, is in New Hampshire, where she holds a seven percentage edge. New Hampshire also gives Harris the edge in handling the economy (47%), but Trump the advantage in handling the Middle East (44%) and immigration (44%).

It still seems to be a very tight race. We’ll find out for sure tomorrow.

Election Headlines:

😲 Trump Says “He shouldn’t have left the White House.”

🤔 What are the polls saying heading into the big day?

Finance

Stocks Moving Ahead of Election

Futures dip on uncertain election.

Dow Jones futures fell slightly yesterday, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures, with the election right around the corner. Investors should use caution until after the election, as well as some other upcoming benchmarks, like the next Federal Reserve meeting later this week and a continued earnings wave, which is also on tap this week. 

Futures may be reacting to prediction markets showing that this race still seems to be a toss up (Dow Jones futures fell 0.4%, S&P futures declined 0.25% and Nasdaq 100 futures lost 0.15%). The stock market had previously been pricing in a Donald Trump victory. However, there had been some buyback on Harris last week in the betting market, with Trump’s odds falling from -225 to -170 in a 48 hour period. 

Even Trump Media & Technology took a tumble, plunging nearly 41% in the past three sessions, after skyrocketing 338% in just over a month. 

This week shall be interesting. While Election Day is tomorrow, we might not have the final results for a few days (let alone any other drama along the way). Additionally, the Federal Reserve is meeting Wednesday-Thursday, with a rate cut seen as a lock, China’s parliament meets later this week, and there are also more earnings reports to come.

So this could be a cautious week for the stock market. We’ll see how tomorrow effects things moving forward. 

What Moves Should You Make?

Not investment advice.

What stocks should you buy and avoid, depending on the Election Day winner? Brett Ashcroft Green broke it down for Seeking Alpha.

The stocks that should benefit from Trump winning would be automotive, machinery, rate-sensitive stocks, oil equipment and refiners and defense sectors. However, international and integrated oil should be avoided with a Trump victory.

Meanwhile, tax-efficient tech, international, integrated oil and financials should benefit from a Harris victory, while avoiding oil refiners and F&B. 

It’s believed that defense should do well regardless of which candidate wins. 

The Tramp tax cut is set to expire in 2025, which has tax and estate planners drawing up strategies in case it does expire - which would happen with a Harris victory. 

Should Trump win, he has expressed his desire to ramp up tariffs, while still cutting taxes even further. The tariffs would be used to make up for government spending shortfalls rather than increased taxation.

However, even staunch Trump supporter Elon Musk acknowledged that extra rounds of tariffs would create short-term pain. 

When it comes to interest rates, Trump is a real estate developer by trade, was the president during the aggressive rate-cutting cycle, as well as when rates were cut to near zero during Covid. The assumption is that Trump would be more aggressive on rate cuts. 

From the Street:

📉 The dollar weakens with no clear leaders.

😉 America just achieved the rare soft landing.

World News

Russian Interference, Again…

Are the Russians stirring the pot?

And so it begins… U.S. officials have determined that Russia was behind a video that circulated online in recent days that Georgia state election officials had to label as disinformation. 

The video shows Haitians claiming that they illegally voted for Kamala Harris - however, this video is apparently a fake and the work of a Russian troll farm. The video was posted to social media last Thursday, depicting a man claiming that he, and the others featured in the video, are from Haiti and arrived in the United States six months ago, obtaining U.S. citizenship within that time, and are voting for Harris in Georgia. 

They listed Fulton County in the video as a place they voted. However, Fulton County officials told CBS News that they do not have a record of a registered voter by the name that was listed on the driver’s license in the video. 

Elon Musk, X, and other social media platforms have been urged to remove this video, which was originally posted by an anonymous X (formerly Twitter) account, “AlphaFox”, which has previously shared disinformation from a Russian influence group known as Storm-1516. 

Storm-1516 has been linked to other fabricated videos, including fake footage that showed election workers ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania. 

The person behind the X account told CBS News that they received the video from a source who regularly pays them to upload content. They said they believed the source was from Australia and had had their X account suspended recently. The video has since been deleted from AlphaFox’s timeline.

Around the Globe:

🇮🇱 Israeli airstrikes kill at least 31 in Gaza.

🇺🇸 Why are the U.S. Elections so long, and others around the world so short.

Business

Final Jobs Report Before Election

Some of the last data released before tomorrow’s election was the October jobs report, which showed that 12,000 jobs were added last month, according to the Bureau of Labor.

This was the weakest monthly gain since December 2020, when Covid-19 was still wrecking the job market (just prior to the vaccines being released), causing 243,000 jobs to be lost that month. 

The 12,000 jobs added were well below the 223,000 that were added in September, as well as the expectation of 112,500 jobs added for the month of October. To be fair, the October number probably was affected by both a large labor strike, as well as the two major deadly hurricanes that struck the southeast (on September 26th and October 9th). 

“Between storms, labor strikes and data collection issues, the labor market numbers we’re seeing today should be taken with a grain of salt. Even though they came in lower than anticipated, with that in mind, the news doesn’t warrant panic about overall economic health,” Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet, said.

But that’s a pretty large grain of salt, with the number of jobs added being just a fraction of expectations, as well as the previous month.

However, the good news is that the unemployment rate remained steady at 4.1%, which signals stability in the labor market. And even with the ugly October data, this still remains tied for the third longest period of employment expansion in history. 

Health care added 51,300 jobs, while the Government added 40,000. However, leisure and hospitality lost 4,000 jobs and construction lost 8,000 jobs (after averaging 20,000 this year through September). 

The largest number of job losses (48,500) were in temporary help services, professional and business services (47,000) and manufacturing (46,000).

Average hourly earnings also grew - at 0.4% for the month. 

What to Know:

🔪 Federal Reserve is set to cut rates again facing post-election outlook.

💡 Harris and Trump command attention, but Powell may steal the spotlight.