Markets: Remember, Remember the Third of November

Writing in the Financial Times on September 1, Robin Wrigglesworth reported that markets are signaling unease about what may lie ahead in the first week of November. It is not so much the election that’s causing agita as the fear that Election Night might not resolve the result. Investors do not appreciate uncertainty, and if everything is still unresolved by, say, late the next day, the only certainty will be uncertainty.

To be blunt, given the way that both the Trump and Biden camps (and parts of the media) are already throwing shade on the election process (not to speak of the sour aftermath of the 2016 election, or, for those with longer memories, the Diebold paranoia of yesteryear, or, for that matter the halcyon days when an election hung on hanging chads), the nervousness, if anything, may be underdone, especially as there are some signs that the race may be tightening, thereby reducing still further the chances of a clear-cut outcome not too long after polls close.

The president’s dark ruminations about the election — many of them centered on the iniquities of mail-in voting — are too well known to need repetition, as is the use he makes of conspiracy theories. But comments from the Biden camp also seem aimed at preparing a claim that they were robbed.