Will the election day remain chaotic? You can see at a glance the "voting deadline" for the 2024 US presidential election!

The US presidential election remains a close race.Voting day is on the 5th (Tuesday, Japan time).Investors are increasingly interested in real-time tracking of the election, the timing of the results announcement, and how to proceed with trades based on the election results. moomoo JP has compiled the following information to assist everyone in their trades during the election week.

Major polling stations are expected to close around noon on the 6th Japan time, with results likely to be announced in the evening.
Due to the different time zones, polling places across the United States have varying opening and closing hours on November 5, generally opening and closing from east to west. The voting deadlines for each state are as follows (the following times are all in Japan time).

Mr. Trump still leads in swing states.
As of November 1st, in the nationwide opinion poll, Mr. Trump is still leading with a 48.4% approval rating, holding a lead of about 0.3 points over Ms. Harris.

For comparison, in the elections at the same time in 2016 and 2020, Mr. Trump leads Mrs. Hillary and Mr. Biden by 7.8 and 1.5 points respectively.

Turning to the swing states, Trump maintains his lead, but it has slightly narrowed compared to a week ago, with Michigan and Wisconsin now favoring Harris.

Based on the current opinion polls, if the electoral votes of each state were distributed as per the current opinion polls, Trump would receive 287 votes and Harris would get 251 votes (270 votes needed for victory).

Looking at the more rapidly changing betting market, Trump's betting odds advantage has recently significantly diminished.According to data compiled by RCP as of November 2, 2024, Trump's betting odds against Harris stand at 54.7% to 44.1%, a significant decrease from the 63.9% at the end of October.

If Mr. Trump wins in Pennsylvania,In addition to Georgia and Arizona in the Sunbelt (both with leads of more than 2% in the Republican polls), Mr. Trump needs to win in North Carolina or Nevada (with a 1.5% lead in the Republican polls).

If Trump loses in Pennsylvania, the most likely scenario is to win in all four Sunbelt states and either Wisconsin or Michigan, but Wisconsin is significantly below the Democratic lead (0.3% difference).

Among these three Blue Wall states, Democrats have a slight lead in Michigan and Wisconsin in the polls, and Pennsylvania is particularly important due to its high uncertainty.

If Ms. Harris wins in Pennsylvania but loses in Michigan or Wisconsin, it is important to watch if there can be a turnaround in North Carolina (where the Republican lead is lower compared to other states).

If Ms. Harris loses in Pennsylvania, or both Michigan and Wisconsin, to win she will need to prevail in at least two swing states in the Sunbelt, which will be challenging.

It is estimated that early voting and mail-in voting will account for 65% of the total votes cast this year.
In the USA, with nearly 107 million registered voters, the voter turnout for the 2020 election is around 66% (the proportion of votes cast to the population eligible to vote), reaching the highest level in over 100 years.

With the estimated total number of eligible voters in 2024 at 204.5 million and a predicted voter turnout rate of 66% as seen in 2020, the total number of votes in 2024 could reach 160 million votes.

As of November 1, there have been 70 million early votes (both in-person and by mail), which accounts for approximately 43% of the total, and with the addition of unreturned mail-in votes (although not all may be returned), early voting could reach an estimated 0.1 billion votes, equivalent to 65% of the total.

An unexpected development of possibility?
There are three possibilities of a tie in this election. In this scenario, the House and Senate need to vote together to elect the President and Vice President, which could potentially favor the Republican party, but a prolongation is expected.

As possibilities, (1) if Ms. Harris wins in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, (2) if Ms. Harris wins in Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, (3) if Ms. Harris wins in North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, these are the three.

In the event of a tie vote, a contingency election is held where the House elects the President by combining the votes of each state's House members, with a total of 26 or more votes from the 50 states needed for victory. The Senate elects the Vice President, with each Senator casting one vote, requiring 51 or more votes to win. The House and Senate do not interfere in each other's elections, and it is possible for the President and Vice President to belong to different parties. At that time, the party affiliation of both chambers in this election plays a crucial role.

Additionally, there may be a situation where the losing party does not accept the election results. Normally, after the results are announced, the defeated party acknowledges the loss and issues a statement accepting the election results. However, in the unlikely event that the losing side does not accept the outcome of the general election, it could lead to further confusion. For example, President Trump questioned the results temporarily in 2020 and incited the Capitol Hill incident in early 2021.

About trading
When considering the impact of election results on various asset classes, it is important to take into account not only the influence of policies themselves but also expectations and the pace of policies in a comprehensive manner.

On the other hand, the market has already priced in the Trump trade in advance (such as US bonds, US dollar, gold, traditional energy and financial stocks, bitcoin, Mexico-Vietnam exchange rates), but the extent to which this is factored in varies by asset. Currently, US stocks, US bonds, US dollar, gold, bitcoin, and the Chinese yuan exchange rate are expected to be relatively factored into the Trump trade, while copper, crude oil, and China's export chains are expected to be less factored in.

On the other hand, it takes time for policies to actually progress, and the sequence and difficulty of policies also vary.