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What one stock market gauge is predicting about the presidential race
If history is any guide, one stock market gauge suggests that Vice President Kamala Harris will defeat former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race.
In all but two elections since 1944, the party in the White House has retained power when the U.S. stock market advances before Election Day, or the period between the end of July and Halloween, according to an election predictor devised by Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, based out of Allentown, Pennsylvania.
In 2020, the S&P 500 fell 0.04% from July 31 to October 31, with then-President Donald Trump losing the election to President Joe Biden. While the outcome in the 2024 election is not yet known, the S&P 500 rose 3.3% during that three-month span this year.
To be sure, many other factors can influence a presidential race, and Wall Street is no stranger to making wrong predictions, ranging from the direction of the stock market to election outcomes. And betting markets that allow average investors to place wagers on the election outcome have in recent weeks favored Trump.
“You can say there is sort of an overlap — the market usually goes up on an annual basis and voters tend to give the incumbent the benefit of the doubt, so it makes sense if the market goes up most of the time and the incumbent gets re-elected most of the time,” Stovall told CBS MoneyWatch.
Even more reliable are periods when the stock market falls during the period from July 31 to October 31, in which case the incumbent has been replaced 89% of the time. That predictor failed only once, in 1956, according to Stovall, pointing to the year when incumbent President Dwight Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson, despite the S&P 500 tumbling 7.7% in the period ahead of the election.
Still, Stovall notes a mathematician might scoff at basing a model on such a limited sample, in this case the 21 presidential elections held in the U.S. since World War II.
“Is this really statistically significant? I think the answer is no, but it makes for interesting copy,” the strategist said. “You can have data tell whatever story you want.”
Limited or not, Stovall is sticking with his presidential predictor.
“I believe we will see a Harris victory ultimately, because I’m a very big believer in history and rules-based investing,” Stovall told CBS News.
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A couple in their 70s who served as election poll workers were among at least five people killed in Missouri after torrential rains caused flash flooding across the state.
Up to 8 inches of rain fell over two days in parts of Missouri, leading to widespread flooding and dozens of water rescues. It was part of a storm system that also spawned tornadoes in Oklahoma and Arkansas.
In Wright County, Missouri, a county of about 19,000 residents 210 miles southeast of Kansas City, a 70-year-old man and 73-year-old woman were in a vehicle swept away by flooding at Beaver Creek around 4:30 a.m. Tuesday, the state patrol said. The bodies of the couple from Manes, Missouri, were found more than four hours later.
Wright County Clerk Loni Pedersen confirmed that both of the people who died were poll workers.
“This is a tragic loss for Wright County,” Pedersen said in an email. “They were dedicated citizens who valued fair and honest elections.”
Three people in two other cars swept away by the fast-rising creek were able to swim to safety, the patrol said.
Missouri State Highway Patrol via AP
Two other deaths were reported in St. Louis County. Firefighters were called Tuesday morning after a submerged SUV was spotted near flooded Gravois Creek, near Interstate 55. Crews broke through the sunroof and pulled out a woman, who was pronounced dead, Lemay Fire Protection District spokesperson Jason Brice said.
Hours later, a man’s body was found in the same flooded creek, Brice said. Authorities were investigating how the body got there. Fire crews rescued 10 other people from flooded vehicles, Brice said.
On Monday, Missouri state troopers recovered a 66-year-old man’s body after a car was swept off a bridge in Ironton, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of St. Louis.
The National Weather Service said four likely tornadoes, and possibly more, touched down in parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas on Monday. There were no reports of deaths or injuries from the tornadoes.
Keli Cain, spokesperson for the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, said assessments of the damage were underway.
The storms struck a day after tornadoes injured at least 11 people in the Oklahoma City area in central Oklahoma.
Cain said the department worked with the Oklahoma State Election Board to ensure that polling places were not disrupted.
