, Columnist
The Stock Market Has a Favorite in the Election
Investors seem to prefer Hillary Clinton. But that doesn't tell you where the market is headed.
One or the other.
Photographer: Chris Haston/NBCU/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
On the evening of Sept. 26, two interesting things happened. First, Hillary Clinton won a decisive debate victory over Donald Trump in the first presidential debate, as judged by prediction markets (and later, by polls). Second, financial markets abruptly experienced large, abnormal swings.
Economists Justin Wolfers and Eric Zitzewitz have documented this extraordinary convergence in a new paper, titled “What do financial markets think of the 2016 election?” Here is their picture of how the markets moved on that night: