US Congressional Elections

The US presidential election is drawing ever closer and there can be no doubt that the race heated up after President Joe Biden abruptly dropped out. His vice president, Kamala Harris, was the obvious choice to replace him despite doubts about her electability. Yet, she managed to steal Donald Trump’s thunder almost immediately after Biden’s endorsement made her the frontrunner to replace him. It didn’t take long for other senior Democrats to give their backing too, and Harris soon had enough delegate votes to secure the party’s ...

As we approach the halfway mark of 2024, I figured it’d be constructive to check in on the results of this year’s record-breaking elections. The numbers are particularly striking: Approximately 4.2 billion people are believed to be casting ballots this year, representing half of the world’s population and 68% of global equity market cap. The implications for investors are profound, with several key elections likely to shape global markets and economies in the months and years to come. We like to say that government policy is a ...

The Republican ‘red wave’ failed to materialise on Tuesday. Republicans are only expected to gain a slim House majority, while control of the Senate looks like it won’t be known for some time with a run-off in Georgia – currently Republicans are on 49, Democrats on 48, and 3 races in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada are too close to call; Georgia is set for a run-off election on 6 December 2022. While the outcome is much closer than expected, it is still consistent with policy gridlock, but perhaps not as much debt ceiling angst as ...

Oil prices were lower early on Wednesday in Europe as the United States continues to count votes in the midterm elections, which turned out to be more contested than predicted with both the House and Senate races too close to call as of 3 a.m. ET. “Definitely not a Republican wave, that is for darn sure,” South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told NBC News. “A wave would have been like [winning] New Hampshire and Colorado.” In the battleground state of Pennsylvania, NBC News projects that Democrat John Fetterman won the ...

Wall Street extends the third straight trading day gains amid the US midterm election optimism after a volatile session due to a plunge in cryptocurrencies. While hopes for Republican control in House or Senate pushed up equity markets, sending both bond yields and the US dollar down, an FTX liquidity crunch-induced crash in cryptocurrencies weighed down risk assets, dragging major US indices off session highs. Gold futures popped more than $30 dollars per ounce due to a softened US dollar, to a one-month high. The crude oil, ...

Brent crude oil prices have been marginally curtailed this morning after Chinese health officials reiterated this importance of their ‘zero-COVID’ policies, suppressing optimism around a Chinese reopening. This has left commodity prices largely in the red while a stronger USD adds to downside momentum. U.S. midterm elections are this main focus for today and much talk has centered around a possible gridlock within the government leaving future policies extremely difficult to pass from either Democrats or Republicans. The importance ...

Obviously it’s SUPER early, and this debatably might not be entirely due to the election at all, but it is interesting that the “reflation” trade is catching an early bid, with the benchmark 10-year treasury bond yielding 0.93%, an 11-month high, gold ticking up to $1915, and Bitcoin holding above $14k. Some had speculated that a Democratic "Blue Wave" result would be the most inflationary outcome, but I'm not seeing anything convincing in the results to point to that outcome yet. Joe Perry, 00:05 GMT (7:05pm ET) Trump wins Kentucky. ...