| It's election day. VotePolls open at 7 a.m. Eastern Time in today's election, with voting continuing until 1 a.m. when Alaska closes. A record-shattering 98 million ballots have already been cast. As well as deciding whether Joe Biden or President Donald Trump will lead the country for the next four years, voters will decide on enough Senators to mean there is a chance of a Democrat sweep of the House and the Senate. Results will start to roll in after voting closes in the first states at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, but it might be some time before a winner is declared. VirusOne of the major issues is Trump's handling of the pandemic. Latest figures show that the resurgence of Covid is particularly pronounced in battleground states and among key demographics. Seven-day average cases are at records in Iowa and Michigan, while Wisconsin posted America's third-highest cases per capita in the past week. Large parts of Europe, meanwhile, are either in lockdown or preparing for tougher measures to fight the spread of the virus. Social media Popular social media platforms will again come under scrutiny as rumors spread about results and voting patterns today. Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. have announced measures to stop the flow of unconfirmed victory reports as users await official results that could take days in some states. Some political organizations have already moved away from the larger social media outlets, and are targeting their messages through texts and live streams, which have much lower levels of policing and transparency. Markets riseGauges around the world are rising as investors make their bets on the outcome of the vote. Overnight, the MSCI Asia Pacific Ex-Japan Index added 1.4%. Japan's markets were closed for a holiday. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index had gained 1.6% by 5:50 a.m., helped by a surge in miners and banks. S&P 500 futures pointed to another strong open, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 0.874% and gold was broadly unchanged. Coming up...September factory and durable goods orders numbers are published at 10:00 a.m. Auto sales data for October comes out today. It's another huge session for earnings with Ferrari NV, Emerson Electric Co. and Johnson Controls International Plc among the many, many companies reporting. Earlier, Saudi Aramco announced it was leaving its dividend unchanged despite reporting a 45% drop in third-quarter profit. What we've been readingThis is what's caught our eye over the last 24 hours. And finally, here's what Justina's interested in this morningIt's Election Day, which means yesterday was the last day my inbox was flooded with predictions of how various outcomes would move markets. There are your super obvious ones -- Biden will boost green energy, a contested result is bad for stocks, etc. -- and then there are ones that are so tough to call partly because the election is just one of many factors.
For instance, while the consensus seems to be that Biden will weaken the dollar with his massive stimulus, I've also heard the argument that the opposite will occur because more fiscal spending will attract capital inflows. Both make sense! (That's not even to mention that predicting exchange rates is notoriously difficult even without politics.) Or consider stocks. Those who think a Blue Wave will be good for stocks cite fiscal support, while their detractors point to taxes. Or some try to square the difference by predicting a short-term gain followed by a medium-term drop. Or the opposite. But of course, as Joe pointed out yesterday, the truth is just that stocks go up in the long run, and there isn't a big difference in that sense between the two parties. Besides, you don't have a large sample size of four-year terms in modern markets to make a fair judgment. I think that might be why as the election approaches, Wall Street's pundits have largely played down fears of a tax hike and turned more bullish. You're just more likely to be right.  Bloomberg Bloomberg
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