MarketWatch: The stock market has already picked the next U.S. president

[kpete]

Market strategist says history favors Clinton; ‘investors like landslide victories’

“The market appears to have decided not only that [Hillary] Clinton will win, but that it won’t be close,” David Woo, a strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said in a report distributed Monday. “Investors like landslide victories.”

Woo noted that the S&P 500 has risen more than 4% since July 5, which marks the beginning of the 90-trading-day countdown to the election on Nov. 8. During years when presidential candidates won by a margin of more than 80% of Electoral College votes, the S&P 500 posted average returns of 8.4% in the 90 days leading up to the election, as this chart illustrates:

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The last time stocks outperformed the current rally at the halfway point was when Ronald Reagan won in a landslide against Walter Mondale in 1984.

“To us, this implies that the market is expecting Hillary Clinton to either maintain or increase her already sizable lead over Donald Trump in the opinion polls,” Woo said, citing the Iowa Electronic Markets, an indicator giving Clinton an 80% chance of beating Trump.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-market-has-already-picked-the-next-us-president-2016-08-29?siteid=yhoof2

[Maeve]

1. My financial advisor told me that last week

That "a Clinton win has already been factored in" is the way he put it. Normally he would be a Republican voter, but...he's a smart man and won't vote for one who isn't.