Macro Dragon: VP Debate = Slight Net-Positive to Reps… 

Top of Mind…

• Touched on this wk in the Dragon’s New Month = New & Final Quarter = New POTUS piece

VP Debate – Overall Conclusion:

• That was an actual debate. Who would have thought!

• Both VPs are way more presidential than their bosses

• Both sides had good & generally well-articulated points, yet also generally did a good enough job of rebutting or diluting the jabs of one another – there were no killing blows landed

• Was surprised at how much Pence dominated the discussion, talking over his allocated times for the vast majority of the debate, interrupting Harris, ignoring the moderator, etc… If you watch the entire debate this is a clear negative, yet you have to take a step back & think most people are not going to watch the entire debate, so there is a greater chance of folks catching Pence having more air-time being assertive, than Harris, who was also strong & assertive

• Had expected Harris to be by far the more dominant one & not sure if this was a strategy on the Dems part… she did seem to keep herself in check. And one has to wonder if maybe the Reps wanted to goad her to snap & potentially play up Trumps’ “Nasty” tag for her

• Moderator was definitely weaker this time around, it’s a tough gig – yet the candidates, especial Pence, walked over her throughout the entire debate

• Pence was very good at sticking to points he wanted to address, even when the moderator was moving onto the next topics – he on a number of occasions went back to a previous point from Harris

• So net-net, it was pretty even – yet likely a victory for the Republicans… i.e. the bar was low for Pence & high for Harris. Yes, a tie in the real world, can actually be a win or loss to someone. Its about expectations going into the event, the actual event & the potential change in future expectations coming out of an event. 

• Great to still see a general level of civility, coherence & ability to agree to disagree

• Star of the show was the big fly that landed on Mike Pence’s hair

• Still amazed, they don’t just mute the mics…

• No material changes to markets, like the cross-asset correlated moves that we had post the Biden / Trump talk last wk

• Oct 15 & Oct 22: Whilst in theory there are two presidential debates left, in practice they may not all occur or may both be scrapped. It’s worth noting they are not a constitutional requirement

• Link to the VP Debate from C-Span (so no pesky commentary from those CNN & FOX folks)

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Not picked up enough of what KVP is putting down?

• From c. 52min in KVP talking on DollarYen on Bloomberg’s Daybreak This will resonate with the 4Q20 piece, where a high conviction structural trade view from KVP’s camp is being short DollarYen, seeing 85 – 95 range by back-end of 2021 & potentially 100 to high 90s by end of 2020. Naturally this gels with the multi-year dollar bearish regime view

• Interestingly enough, in the near-term we are seeing DollarYen break higher… with still a few wks to go into the election

• Have already flagged this great podcast, & guess who he is interviewing Insert: Human before from a friend, mentor, great soul & clear independent brilliant thinker Chris Colbert – do please check it out, if it makes you think, please follow plus leave a 5-star review

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Dragon’s Must Reads…

• John Hardy dropping a roadmap US Election Primer: The Final Sprint to November 3rd

  We sort through important dates in this final sprint phase of the absurdly long US presidential election cycle. Historically, we have seen significant shifts in the polling in the final weeks leading up to the election. As well, we consider factors that can change the odds between now and Election Day on November 3rd.

• Saxo’s US Election Cheat Sheet Which cuts into the three potential pathways into the elections, probabilities around them, as well as short & long-term positions across equities, bonds, commodities & currencies.  

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Start-to-End = Gratitude + Integrity + Vision + Tenacity | Process > Outcome | Sizing > Idea

This is the way 

KVP