Navigating the Uncertain Waters of the U.S. Election

Despite a flurry of election news, little may have changed for investors weighing the possible outcomes. Our Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research, Michael Zezas, explains why this is the case as we move closer to Election Day.

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Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income and Thematic Research. Along with my colleagues bringing you a variety of perspectives, today I'll be talking about recent developments in the US election.

It's Wednesday, September 4th at 10:30am in New York. 

While news headlines might make it seem a lot has changed in recent weeks around the US election, in our view not much has changed at all. And that’s important for investors to understand as they navigate markets between now and Election Day on November 5th. Let me explain. 

In recent weeks, we've had the Democratic convention, fresh polls, and a third party candidate withdraw from the race and endorse former President Trump. But all appear to reflect only marginal impacts on the probabilities of different electoral outcomes. 

Take the withdrawal of independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Junior, which does not appear to be a game changer. Historical precedent is that third party candidates rarely have a path to even winning one state's electoral votes. Further, in polls voters tend to overstate their willingness to support third parties ahead of election day. And it's also not clear that Kennedy withdrawing clearly benefits Democrats or Republicans.  

Kennedy originally ran for President as a Democrat, and so was thought to be pulling from likely Democratic voters. However, polls suggest his supporter’s next most likely choice was nearly split between Trump and Harris.  

So while it’s possible that Kennedy’s decision to endorse Trump upon dropping out could be meaningful, given how close the race is, we’re unlikely to be able to observe that potentially marginal but meaningful effect until after the election has passed. And such effects could easily be offset by small shifts favoring Democrats, who are showing some polling resiliency in states where just a couple months ago the election was not assumed by experts to be close.  

For example, Cook Political Report, a site providing non-partisan election analysis, shifted its assessment of the Presidential election outcome in North Carolina from “lean Republican” to a “toss-up.” Similarly, in recent weeks the site has shifted states like Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia into that same category from “lean Republican.” These shifts are mirrored in several other polls released last week showing a close race in the battleground states. 

So, for all the changes and developments in the last week, we think we’re left with a Presidential race that’s difficult to view as anything other than a tossup. To borrow a term from the world of sport – it’s a game of inches. Small improvements for either side can be decisive, but as observers we may not be able to see them ahead of time.  

And so that brings us back to our guidance for investors navigating the run up to the election. Let the democratic process unfold and don’t make any major portfolio shifts until more is known about the outcome. That means the economic cycle will drive markets more than the election cycle in the next couple months. 

In our view, that favors bonds over stocks. Lower inflation enables easier monetary policy and lower interest rates, good for bond prices; but growth concerns should weigh on equities.  

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