What we’re reading (11/3)
Happy election day!
“What Wall Street Will Be Watching As Votes Are Counted” (New York Times). “For months, investors have signaled that their No. 1 desire is more federal spending to keep the economy afloat in the face a pandemic that is now rapidly expanding. So when the election season culminates on Tuesday, the prospects for a stimulus bill are likely to influence how Wall Street reacts.”
“Here’s What Every Election Since 1900 Can Tell Us About The 2020 Race’s Impact On Stocks” (CNBC). “As stocks rose Monday, a positive setup to what could be a wild week for the U.S. market, one top strategist said his historical analysis suggests a notably tough setup for Republican incumbent President Donald Trump heading into Election Day. Ed Clissold, chief U.S. strategist at Ned Davis Research Group, studies elections going back to 1900 and analyzes their impact on the stock market. ‘We looked back since 1900 in years when you’ve had either a recession or a 20% drop in the market, and the incumbent party is 0 for the last 6 times when you’ve had either of those happen,’ Clissold told CNBC’s ‘ETF Edge’ on Monday. ‘Of course, this time, we’ve had both happen.’ ‘You’d have to go all the way back to Harry Truman in 1948 to find a time when a president overcame that scenario,’ he said.”
“Affective Polarization Did Not Increase During The Coronavirus Pandemic” (NBER). Interesting new study by some eminent scholars. The abstract: “We document trends in affective polarization during the coronavirus pandemic. In our main measure, affective polarization is relatively flat between July 2019 and February 2020, then falls significantly around the onset of the pandemic. Two other data sources show no evidence of an increase in polarization around the onset of the pandemic. Finally, we show in an experiment that priming respondents to think about the coronavirus pandemic significantly reduces affective polarization.”
“The Pandemic Case For The Two-Day Workweek” (The New Republic). “We’ve known for some time that residents of countries that collectively work less as a result of strong social provisions are much happier than we are. (‘Family life balance is phenomenally better than it would be back in the U.S.,’ an American transplant to Denmark, which consistently ranks as the happiest country on earth, marveled to CBS a few years ago. ‘The Danes, they leave work at five o’clock and they’re home for dinner by 5:30.’) Even just in the United States, smaller experiments to recalibrate the balance of the time workers split between work and leisure have generated measurable improvements in people’s quality of life: Throughout the pandemic, the city of Stockton, California, has continued a universal basic income program, which residents say has dramatically reduced their stress and allowed them to spend more time with their families.”
“Ant’s Record IPO In Shanghai And Hong Kong Suspended” (Wall Street Journal). “The Shanghai Stock Exchange postponed Ant Group Co.’s blockbuster initial public offering, a day after a quartet of regulatory agencies summoned Jack Ma, the company’s controlling shareholder, and top executives to a closed-door meeting. The meeting with regulators and changing regulatory environment have disqualified Ant from listing this Thursday, the bourse said in a statement on Tuesday. The recent developments are material events that haven’t been properly disclosed to investors, the exchange said.”
