I know it’s PR but…well…it’s Borat: The news is appropriate enough: [Rudi] Giuliani went to the hotel room thinking he was being interviewed about the Trump administration’s COVID-19 response. The young woman is flirtatious with him and invites him to the bedroom, which is rigged with hidden cameras. Giuliani then asks for her phone number

Via RealClear some movement to the incumbent at the headline: Battlegrounds not so much: Betting still all over the joint:   No gap closure at FiveThirtyEight: An embarrassingly Trump worshipping Zero Hedge makes a big deal of registrations: Last week, we published an article detailing a warning from JPMorgan’s top quant Marko Kolanvoci to all those expecting

What a complete moron…. https://t.co/Ptlo6zxIV7 — Peter van Onselen (@vanOnselenP) October 13, 2020 He may claim to be physically immune but he’s died of political COVID. Headline polls are cooked: Battleground states are cooked: He’s holding on in Texas: But all bets are off: Biden is far ahead of Hilary at the comparable time. Barring

The thing about being a “strongman” populist winner is that you need always to be one. If you start to look vulnerable, like a loser on The Apprentice, then the gloss quickly turns to rust as what was formerly teflon-coated rhetoric feels more like secondhand car salesmanship.  That is where El Trumpo is today, via

He didn’t look great yesterday but he’s going home regardless: Looks like he may have brushed on some extra orange foundation before leaving (missed a bit around the edges): And can he breath? Trump looks like he is gasping for air pic.twitter.com/4k2v4Jxlir — Brennan Murphy (@brenonade) October 5, 2020 Not a hoax. Who released this

Via the BBC: Trump: “We built the greatest economy in history” Verdict: That’s not right – there have been times in US history when the economy was stronger. Before the coronavirus outbreak, President Trump claimed to have generated historic economic growth. It’s true the economy was doing well before the pandemic – continuing a trend

This is the rolling agony that Psycho Creighton and the IPA would inflict upon us if they could. Rolling waves of virus and death: As the economy opens then shuts then opens then shuts: It looks very much like the US is headed into its third wave as winter approaches. Expect another economic downdraft to

Via Citi: Citi Private Bank today released results from a survey led by the Private Capital Group, providing a rare insight into the thinking of some of the world’s sophisticated family offices and investors during an unprecedented health and economic crisis. In one of the private banking industry’s most comprehensive polls* of investor sentiment since the onset

Ray Dalio at Bloomie: Meh. There’s a difference between cyclical deflation of a currency and structural. Dalio is about two hundred years too early by confusing the first and second. Perhaps because he is so biased towards China. Recall this hogwash: To refresh your memory, the chart below shows the relative powers of the leading

It’s looking more like US presidential betting markets are today tied up with stock market liquidity: As said last week, I wonder if there is some relationship between stock market gains and those plumping for Trump, beyond simple sentiment. The polls are still strongly blue:   Though Trump has gained in swing states: I still

A bit silly in my book: Polling has lifted a bit: I wonder if the betting markets aren’t a little swayed by the broader stock market bubble in their own case of reverse Trump derangement syndrome. There’ll be some significant crossover in the punters. The virus is helping so there’s some support for the betting

Via Stephen Roach: The double dip is not a dance. It is the time-honored tendency of the US economy to relapse into recession after a temporary recovery. Over the years, it has happened far more often than not. Notwithstanding frothy financial markets, which currently are discounting the nirvana of an uninterrupted V-shaped recovery, there is

The gap is closing fast: There’s still no comparable movement in polling: Perhaps betting markets are focussed on improving pandemic numbers, violent BLM protests and daily and material China-bashing. Of these, only the last looks like a Trump advantage to me. The first two look more like his fault. I remain of the view that

Towards not to: Nothing in broader polling supports it: But this does: The stock market is mulling voting Biden: Some of that will be exaggerated by big tech which definintely is not high tax thanks to Ireland. My base case remains a Democratic sweep.