Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

To whom?

You obviously otherwise you wouldn't be so worried about it Fred.

Think it might matter to the UK and Europe too and President Obama but what would I know.

It looks like the markets are going to be pumping the indices up before the
US elections, just like what happened prior the eu referendum with stocks and
the gdp exchange rate where it was pumped up in expectation that the vote
would be to 'remain'..

Dil,

At my age I worry for others.

Hoping they have my good luck.

Dil,

At my age I worry for others, not myself.

Hoping that they have my good luck.

Sky-gazers should pencil November 14 into the diary as the moon will come closer to Earth than at any time in almost 70 years.

The "supermoon" will appear up to one-third (30%) brighter and 14% bigger than an average full moon, according to Nasa.

Just in:

The markets wouldn’t react well to a Donald Trump victory

The interminable US election finally terminates this week (we hope).

Assuming that it isn’t too close to call, or that one of the candidates doesn’t throw a massive hissy fit (those are big assumptions, I admit), then we should know who the next president of the United States is by Wednesday.

I’m not going to do anything pompous like formally declaring for one or other of the candidates. I know a fair few Americans read this, but they’d rightly ignore a foreigner telling them how to vote – the same way I couldn’t care less about a US pundit’s views on Scottish independence.

But regardless of your politics, you’d have to be wilfully self-deceiving to believe that markets would welcome the prospect of a Donald Trump victory. It’s pretty clear that investors see a Trump win as being similar to a Brexit vote – it would be an unpleasant surprise for them.

That’s why, after closing lower for nine sessions in a row, the S&P 500 has just gone through its longest losing streak. And it looks like having a rebound today now that the FBI has decided that the whole Hillary Clinton email business is off the table once again.

Why is this the case? In many ways, Clinton and Trump aren’t that different economically. They favour different sectors from one another – renewables versus fossil fuels, for example – but overall, they would both increase spending, and the US Federal Reserve’s monetary policies are unlikely to be significantly different regardless of who wins.

It really just boils down to expectations. Markets don’t quite know what to expect from Trump. He’s not the standard US presidential candidate. On top of that, he seems to be quite a mercurial chap (that’s a polite way to put it). So they need to discount that uncertainty.

In effect, if Trump wins, the market needs to be offered bigger returns in order to invest in risk assets. That means prices have to fall from where they are now.

So if he does win, I’d expect the following to happen: stockmarkets in the US (and therefore, pretty much around the world) would fall hard; the dollar would take a hit too (although not against the Mexican peso, which would fall harder).

Gold would jump. And as for US bond yields – this one’s a tiny bit trickier because you’ve got the “safe haven” impulse to invest in US debt clashing with the fact that it’s the US you’re worried about. But overall I’d expect them to rise (ie, bond prices would fall).

As I said, there’s no need to fiddle with your portfolio ahead of the big day (I’m assuming you already hold some gold, a good spread of global equities and some cash). I’m just outlining roughly what would happen so you know what to expect.

And if you’re a trader type, then going into the election, I’d guess you want to be short the S&P 500, short the dollar (maybe against the yen, which tends to benefit most from safe haven flows), long gold, and short US long bonds.

You’d be able to have a pretty tight stop loss at the upper end, because it’ll rapidly become clear if the bet’s going to go your way or not. But I won’t discuss this any further, because if you haven’t traded before – now is not the time to start.

What if Clinton wins?

What if it’s Clinton? The reaction would be milder overall, because she’s the continuity candidate. You’d probably get a bounce in stocks, a fall in gold, bit of a bounce in the dollar, and a fairly muted reaction from Treasuries (because yields seem to be heading higher anyway, and with Clinton planning on spending more money there’d be no reason for them to fall).

Biotech and big pharma probably wouldn’t like it. Clinton has talked a lot about tackling high drug pricing in the US. More broadly, it would probably set us up for the usual Santa Claus rally in the run up to Christmas as markets relaxed a little. But overall, I wouldn’t expect a huge reaction.

Of course, once the dust settles and the long-term implications of whatever the winning line-up looks like (remember that the composition of Congress matters a lot too in terms of getting things done or not getting things done) become clearer, markets may well get rattled again – regardless of who wins.

As I said, both candidates look set to be big spenders at a time when interest rates are wobbling higher. Both are interventionists, neither is particularly friendly to the ideas of globalisation or free trade, and they both inherit a messy bundle of foreign policy challenges.

We’ll be looking at what those challenges mean for whoever is the next president of the US in the next issue of MoneyWeek, out on Friday.

John Stepek
Executive editor, MoneyWeek

Sums up Brexit Plans.

Obsessed isn't the word is it Freda .

Vic,

I thought you might like an image of one of your icons to hang on the wall.

Yes she'll go with Nige just above me when I nod off , then awaken to see my heroes standing over me . What more can anyone want .

Depends on what turns you on.

Hope you're not getting jealous now .

Hey!

This could be a 'Trump Election Winner'

8-)

I wish something could.

.

Nicola Sturgeon to try and intervene in Article 50 Supreme Court case






By Simon Johnson, Scottish Political Editor
8 November 2016 • 2:04pm




Nicola Sturgeon has announced her government will attempt to intervene in the Supreme Court’s Brexit case and argued that the Scottish Parliament should have to consent to the triggering of Article 50.

The First Minister said Lord Advocate James Wolffe, Scotland’s most senior law officer, will lodge a formal application asking for leave to make representations in the controversial case.

If this is granted, he is expected to argue at the Supreme Court that the Article 50 process for leaving the EU cannot be triggered without a legislative consent motion (LCM) from the Scottish Parliament.

This would allow MSPs to block Brexit, with a majority of members in the Holyrood chamber vigorously opposed to leaving the EU.



More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/08/nicola-sturgeon-to-try-and-intervene-in-article-50-supreme-court/

don't bother to wait up .......

Polls start closing at 6pm Eastern Standard Time (11pm UK time) in Indiana and Kentucky, and end at midnight EST (5am UK time) in Alaska.

Next up, polls in a further five states, including the battleground swing state of Florida, close at 7pm EST.

The busiest time will be after 8pm, when 20 states’ polls are closing. Swing states in this batch include Illinois and Michigan.

Finally Alaskan polling stations will shut their doors at midnight.

Barring any hitches, the result will be clear by midnight (EST) when the last state of Alaska releases its exit poll. Expect the result to be announced by around 4am GMT on November 9 (11pm ET November 8)

merkil and 5 other eu leaders in talks to stop the uk signing article 50 .
drawing up an agreement on free movement , they need the uk billions
Sweden is pushing the deal