US Election Day
As those that have not voted in the US (and want to vote), the AUD is the strongest and the USD is the weakest. Like all of 2020, the unknown is a risk. Although Biden has a lead according the polls, the lessons from 2016 taught everyone the importance of the electoral college. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia are some of the key swing states to eye and according to experts can shift (we just can't trust the polls). Then there are the mail in votes and the counting of them. Then there are the Senate races. The GOP holds a 53-47 lead currently. Georgia has two seats up for grabs and both are tight. If neither candidate gets 50% (some think both will), the elections go into a runoff but oot until January 5th.
Polls start closing at 7 PM on the east coast. Here is a list of the poll closing times in the US. Some speculation of the winner will start to be made at that time (including Florida), but given all the uncertainty and vote counting procedure that needs to be done, declaring a winner may be days away.
The AUD is the strongest despite the RBA cutting rates to 0.1% (as expected). They said rates won't rise for a few years and they are prepared to do more if necessary him
The ranges and changes show pretty decent activity with the USD trading near session lows across the board. Stocks are higher and the Pavlovian reaction (mostly of late) is to send flows out of the USD (at least temporarily. The AUDUSD is now trading back above the 100 day MA at 0.71156 and near session highs. The GBPUSD is pushing higher for most of the day too and tests it's 200 hour MA at 1.29977.
In other markets:
- Spot gold is trading up $4.62 or 0.24% at $1900
- Spot silver is up $0.12 or +0.53% at $24.21
- WTI crude oil futures are up $0.93 oe2.53% at $37.74
In the pre-market for US stocks, the futures are implying higher openings:
- S&P is up 36 points
- NASDAQ is up 62 points
- Dow is up 351 points
in the European equity markets, the major indices are up for the 2nd consecutive day:
- German DAX, +1.9%
- France CAC up 1.9%
- UK's FTSE 100, +1.9%
- Spain's Ibex, +1.5%
- Italy's FTSE MIB, +2.0%
In the US debt market, yields are higher with a steeper yield curve:
In the European debt market, yields are mixed with Germany, France, UK higher and investors buying the risk year countries of Spain, Italy and Portugal:
