The U.S. dollar traded lower against all of the major currencies on Tuesday. This broad-based decline is a reflection of the market’s concerns about how the U.S. political and economic landscape could change in the next 24 to 48 hours. There are two Senate runoff elections in Georgia that will determine which party controls the Senate. Polls close at 7 p.m. Eastern, but if it's very close, it may be hours or days before the final results are known. These Senate elections are important because they determine what type of policies will be passed over the next four years. If Democratic candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win, the Senate would be evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, giving Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote.
Under a blue Senate, President-elect Joe Biden would have a much easier time passing a major stimulus package and fund it with higher taxes. If Warnock and Offsoff win, look for a knee-jerk sell-off in currencies and equities. If just one Republican candidate wins, currencies and equities should extend their gains. Over the past few months, stocks hit record highs on the expectations for a divided government that will keep taxes low and limit major policy changes.
On Wednesday, the Electoral College votes will be counted by Congress. This is normally a procedural affair that gets very little attention, but this time a dozen Republican Senators have said they will contest the votes in six swing states. The last time this happened was in 1887. In order for a state’s vote to be officially recognized as an objection, there needs to be a written document signed by one member of the House and one member of the Senate. Then, vote counting is suspended and both chambers will debate the vote and decide whether to sustain the objection. For the state’s vote to be dismissed, it needs to be sustained by both houses. This has never happened in the history of the Electoral College. If even one state’s vote is officially objected, preventing the 2020 election results from being certified, currencies and equities would sell-off in confusion.
The most likely scenario, however, is that both votes end the way we expect them to. That means one or both incumbent senators in Georgia retain their seats and Congress certifies Biden’s victory. These outcomes would reinforce the rally in equities and currencies. Japanese Yen crosses should benefit the most, with broad-based gains in high-beta currencies. The U.S.’s political drama will finally come to an end and investors can move onto new 2021 themes.
Wednesday’s FOMC minutes will take a back seat to all of these political developments. We know that the Federal Reserve is dovish and there’s very little reason for its stance to change.
The Australian and New Zealand dollars were the day’s best performers, which is no surprise given the impressive control of COVID-19 and summer recoveries in these countries. EUR/USD rose above 1.23 on the back of U.S. dollar weakness and stronger German data. Despite virus restrictions German retail sales and unemployment change beat expectations. Eurozone PMI revisions and inflation data are due for release tomorrow. None of these reports are expected to have a significant impact on the euro.
Sterling also traded higher despite new lockdown restrictions. With a highly transmittable variant of COVID-19 raging across the country, Prime Minister Boris Johnson reimposed some of their strictest lockdown measures as new virus cases exceed 60,000 for the first time ever. To put this into perspective, it is estimated that roughly one in 50 people now have the virus in England. The new restrictions include closing all secondary and primary schools, issuing a stay-at-home order that only permits limited outdoor activities and preventing non-essential travel of any sort around the UK. These restrictions are expected to remain in place through the middle of February. Sterling managed to shrug off these measures because the government also unveiled $6 billion in new support for the economy.