Judging by the reaction in the markets, the first US Presidential election debate saw the democratic candidate Hillary Clinton take the upper hand. During the 90-minute discussion the biggest mover was the Mexican Peso, which is higher by more than 1.50% on the day and has recently traded with a high degree of correlation to Mrs. Clinton’s ratings in the polls.
Clinton to regain the lead?
Heading into last night’s New York showdown - which could well be the most-watched debate in television history, with an estimated 100 million viewers forecasted to have tuned in - polls suggested the candidates were locked in a dead heat. Mrs. Clinton had previously been the front-runner according to surveys, but recent developments and in particular concerns surrounding her health after she was taken ill at a 9/11 memorial ceremony had seen Republican nominee Donald Trump close the gap.
Trump takes aim at Clinton’s health
In one of the more heated exchanges, Mr. Trump claimed that his rival didn’t have the stamina to be president, to which Mrs. Clinton replied that she visited 112 countries as Secretary of State. The market reaction, in particular in the Peso - which is on course for its largest gain against the US dollar in almost three months - suggest that the democratic candidate came out on top, but the victory is far from resounding. With two more debates scheduled before the election date on 8th November, there are sure to be twists and turns to come and it seems last night was more a case of Mrs. Clinton edging ahead on the judges scorecards, rather than landing a knockout blow.
Stock rally from debate begins to fade
Whilst the debate was being aired, stock futures and Asian markets caught a bid and this fed through to the London open with the FTSE 100 beginning brightly in an attempt to end its two-day losing streak. However, this rally out the gate has begun to fade and at the time of writing the UK blue-chip index has just turned negative on the day. Wolseley (LON:WOS) and Travis Perkins (LON:TPK) are the worst performing shares, as the building sector trades fairly deep in the red. Airlines are also continuing their bad start to the week with easyJet (LON:EZJ) and International Consolidated Airlines off by just under 2%. Carnival (LON:CCL) tops a list of the gainers and is up by almost 3%, with Sky and Pearson (LON:PSON) also rising significantly.
Iran still not playing ball
News has hit the wires this morning that Iran are still unwilling to agree on a production freeze amongst OPEC members, in a move that has seen some selling in Oil benchmarks. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh has been making comments to reporters in Algiers ahead of the informal OPEC talks and stated that it was not on his agenda to reach an agreement in these two days. It could be another case of disappointment for members of the organisation hoping to strike a deal, with Iran seemingly still unwilling to curb output until they have ramped up production to 4 million barrels a day, following the lifting of sanctions earlier this year.