Biden and Harris, US President and Vice-President Elects?
November 8, 2020
Weekly Market Update 6 Nov 2020 – Biden and Harris, US President and Vice-President Elects?
- With many Americans voting early and by mail, the US Presidential Election this year is an extraordinary one, which led to confusing and mixed initial results. Market’s expect that compared to Trump, Biden will be friendlier to the European Union and Canada while being critical of UK’s Brexit decision. This would suggest an outperformance of EUR and CAD with a weakening of GBP in the case of a Biden win
- The Bank of England was expected to ease monetary policy, especially with a downward revision of PMIs on Tuesday which shows the weakening of the economy. Although the central bank increased their bond buying program by 150 billion pounds, which was larger than expected, Sterling rallied as they left interest rates untouched and there were no indications of negative interest rates
- Buoyed by stronger Australian trade data, both AUD and NZD performed well and there are expectations that further recovery is on track. In Canada, there are encouraging signs on the resilience of the economy as unemployment rate dipped with a high number of hours worked despite worsening virus numbers