Election Day is here, and U.S. stocks are surging.
The major averages climbed on Tuesday, adding to Monday’s gains as investors hoped for a clear outcome to what is shaking out to be a neck-and-neck presidential election.
As stocks rose, bond yields jumped and the dollar weakened, Strategic Wealth Partners President and CEO Mark Tepper said the market was signaling that “this election’s going to be a heck of a lot closer than the polls are telling us.”
“We look at three different indicators: the direction of the S&P the 90 days before the election, the direction of the U.S. dollar the 90 days before the election and then the performance of red versus blue stocks the 90 days before the election,” Tepper said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.”
“The first two are giving the advantage to President [Donald] Trump. The third goes to [Joe] Biden,” he said. “So, I think it is a clear toss-up.”
The market may also have to tolerate uncertainty for longer than it did following the 2016 election, Tepper said.
“We had a winner the next day back in 2016. We may not have a winner for a week,” he said. “We all know the market hates uncertainty. So hopefully we can get an answer sooner than later, we can arrive at some clarity, and then, I think, actually, things should be pretty good for stocks.”
TradingAnalysis.com founder Todd Gordon recalled being “up trading S&P futures all night” during the 2016 election.
“I won’t be doing that again,” Gordon said in the same “Trading Nation” interview. “But there were some interesting developments leading up to what we saw.”
“In 2016, technology was bid up in August, September, October, but then when Trump was elected, there was a major rotation back into financials, to the greatest extent, as well as industrials and energy,” he said.
That pattern may be repeating, with financials, industrials and transports leading in Tuesday’s session, Gordon said.
“Over the last two months, we’re seeing a rotation sort of into industrials, transports and materials [and] out of communications, technology, discretionary,” suggesting that the more cyclical sectors “might see some short-covering or new buying, which … is indicating the polls may be overstating the possibility of a blue sweep,” Gordon said.
He had his eye on the materials space, flagging stocks such as International Paper, Ball Corp., PPG Industries and his top pick, Martin Marietta Materials.
With the stock poised to break through resistance at $300 after holding the line of support in its upward channel, Martin Marietta is a name to consider in the case of a victory for Trump, Gordon said. The stock closed up nearly 2% at $276.16 per share Tuesday.
“On the other side, if Biden does come through, I think he’s going to drop the pursuit of Google,” Gordon said.
“If you combine that with a recent strong earnings report and the recent relative performance, Google, I think, could finally try to break out through the old resistance,” he said, referencing Alphabet’s stock chart.
“Plus, on the bottom part of the chart … you’re seeing Google start to outperform the Nasdaq [100] as well,” Gordon said. “So, two stocks to look for. Sort of hedging my bets there.”
Alphabet shares closed up more than 1% Tuesday at $1,645.66. The Nasdaq 100 closed up almost 2%.
