Tim Hoyle, CFA, Chief Investment Officer
thoyle@haverfordquality.com
Arnold Palmer Nation
Some of us love lemonade, and some of us prefer iced tea, but try to find someone who doesn’t love an Arnold Palmer! In that spirit, markets responded with elation to last week’s bi-partisan election results. The S&P 500 gained 7.3% on the week, its best election-week performance since Roosevelt beat Hoover in 1932. Instead of a blue wave, voters rejected both President Trump and the Democratic party creating more of a purple electoral map. President-elect Biden secured the votes, but the Senate is projected to remain in Republican hands (Georgia voters will have the final say), and Democrats will have lost seven to eleven House seats when the final vote is in. The House of Representatives is projected to stay Democrat-led but will have its thinnest majority in about two decades, the Senate will likely be 51 Republican seats to 49 Democratic, and Joe Biden, who won the nomination of his party on a centrist message, will be President. As of Monday morning, roughly 8 million more votes were cast for Donald Trump than in 2016, while Joe Biden improved on Hillary Clinton’s vote tally by 9 million.
We are an Arnold Palmer nation, and the markets are fine with that.
