President Joe Biden had a shaky performance in last night’s presidential debate, triggering panic in the Democrat camp. Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, repeated multiple falsehoods while doubling down on his record of cutting taxes and hiking tariffs during his first presidential term.
If repeated in a second Trump term, many economists fear that kind of agenda could stoke inflation at a critical moment and add to America’s rapidly growing debt mountain. Markets barely blinked.
What’s happening: US stocks were higher in pre-market trading on Friday and CNN’s Fear & Greed index remained in neutral territory for a second consecutive day as investors shrugged off a contentious presidential debate that dominated the news cycle.
Investors instead opted to focus on inflation — the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index is due Friday — and the end of a strong first half of the trading year.
“In the current environment, the path of inflation and interest rates, and whether the Fed can stick the soft economic landing will likely be more consequential than the election,” wrote Keith Lerner, Truist’s chief market strategist, in a recent analysis.
Despite their different policies, under each of the past three US presidents, Barack Obama, Trump and Biden, the S&P 500 index has delivered an annual return of between 12% and 17%, Lerner said.
Market volatility often heats up toward the end of an election year and then recedes, but this race is unusual because there are two incumbents running for office. That could pull the typical year-end election relief rally forward, said Ed Clissold, chief US strategist at Ned Davis Research.
Investors have bigger things to worry about.
“Stock market behavior and investor reactions in the coming days will largely hinge on the upcoming inflation data release,” said Antonio Ernesto Di Giacomo, a market analyst at the brokerage xs.com, on Friday.
“The PCE reading on Friday will be decisive, providing crucial insights into the future of inflation and potential Federal Reserve actions.”
Markets are also focused on closing out a strong first half of the year — the S&P 500 is on track to end the first six months of the year 15% higher. A strong first half typically denotes that the second half will be “very good,” wrote Goldman Sachs’ Scott Rubner in a recent note.
Sector specific: While broad market indexes are relatively unfazed by the Biden-Trump head-to-head, certain sectors are more deeply influenced by election outcomes, said Jonas Goltermann, deputy chief markets economist at Capital Economics.
Financials and energy tend to be more susceptible to policy direction, for example.
The US dollar has also been reactive — it edged higher as initial CNN polling found that Trump was viewed as the winner of the debate. That could be because Trump reiterated his desire to impose a 10% tariff on all imports, which would likely increase inflation and cast doubt on interest rate cuts.
Eyes on France: Across the Atlantic, investors are less sanguine about looming political risk.
French President Emmanuel Macron called a snap parliamentary election after his centrist Renaissance party lost heavily to the far-right opposition in European elections. The first round of the French election will be held on Sunday, with a second round on July 7.
France is running one of the highest budget deficits in the eurozone and risks falling foul of the European Commission’s new fiscal rules. Against that backdrop, markets are nervous about the populist policies being suggested by parties on the left and right.
“Political uncertainty is a near-term headwind to both sentiment (reflected through financial markets) and, now, activity,” wrote Katie Nixon, chief investment officer for Northern Trust Wealth Management. Until July, “we can anticipate volatility in European equity and debt markets.”
While the majority of European indexes traded higher on Friday, France’s benchmark, the CAC 40, was 0.3% lower.
The spread between yields on French and German government debt hit its highest level since the 2012 eurozone crisis on Friday as investors worried that promised spending by France’s far-right party would add to the country’s already huge government debt pile.
What to know about the massive car dealership outage
CDK Global is still down heading into the brisk car-selling Fourth of July holiday next week. Auto dealerships use its software to manage everything from scheduling to records, and the mass outage since last week has paralyzed nearly 15,000 dealerships across North America.
CDK said last Saturday that it has begun restoring its software, but both car buyers and dealers are currently at a standstill. It has suggested several times that a fix is in order, only to say then that its systems would remain out of commission for a while longer.
Here’s what you need to know about the massive software outage, report my CNN colleagues Ramishah Maruf and Eva Rothenberg.
What does CDK Global do? CDK Global provides data and technology to different automotive dealerships. Its systems are used by roughly 15,000 car dealerships across the United States and Canada.
CDK operates different software products car dealers use to handle workflow such as keeping records of negotiated deals, to scheduling and communicating about service. Not every dealer uses CDK’s products, and those that do may not use CDK for every dealership task, but the system shutdown has been a problem for many.
To protect customer privacy, customers’ details aren’t written out on a piece of paper that’s just sitting on a desk anymore. Instead, information about deals and customer appointments is kept in a server that’s now impossible for salespeople affected by the outage to access.
Can I still buy a car or get my car repaired? Salespeople and service employees who spoke with CNN say they’ve resorted to using pen and paper to process purchases, which has drawn out the amount of time it takes to buy a car, according to Scott Campbell, a salesman at Capital City Buick GMC in Berlin, Vermont. He estimates wait times have doubled or tripled.
Several buyers and repair customers tell CNN they’ve experienced long delays.
When will CDK be back online? CDK Global doesn’t believe its systems will return online before June 30.
Why did systems go down? CDK has said it is working to investigate the shutdown after two cyber incidents brought its systems to a standstill. The company has not confirmed who was behind the incidents.
Bloomberg previously reported the company was negotiating with an Eastern Europe-based hacker group demanding tens of millions of dollars in ransom to end the outage.
Walgreens will close a significant number of US stores, shutting down many unprofitable locations
Walgreens is set to close a substantial number of its roughly 8,600 locations across the United States as the company looks to reset the struggling pharmaceutical chain’s business, reports my colleague Jordan Valinsky.
The company didn’t announce a specific number of store closures, but it said Thursday that it is planning “significant” closures of underperforming stores across America as part of a multiyear optimization program.
CEO Tim Wentworth said on a call with analysts Thursday that “changes are imminent” for the roughly 25% of stores that aren’t profitable and Walgreens’ strategic review will “include the closure of a significant portion of these underperforming stores.”
“We are at a point where the current pharmacy model is not sustainable and the challenges in our operating environment require we approach the market differently,” he said.
