Shanghai could be the world's biggest IPO market this year. Holding the title will be tough - CNN

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Stock exchanges in Greater China — including Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen — have raised a combined $123 billion through hundreds of new corporate listings so far this year, according to data compiled by research firm Dealogic.

That total has been driven in large part by Ant Group, which is raising $34 billion by listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, the largest IPO in history. But other marquee listings, including SMIC and JD.com, have also put the trio of exchanges in Greater China on pace to vault ahead of the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq for the second year in a row.

The combined might of Hong Kong and mainland China has long made the region a popular destination for IPOs, though that's largely because of how free and open Hong Kong is to investment.

This year, though, Shanghai is far more of a heavyweight than it has been in the past. The $61 billion that has been raised so far in 2020 through public offerings on the city's exchange is more than triple the total raised by this point in 2019, according to Dealogic.

Shanghai has so much momentum, in fact, that its stock exchange is likely to rank No. 1 in the world for IPOs this year, according to estimates from global accountancy firm Deloitte. (Dealogic, which does not issue year-end projections, says the Chinese city's exchange has never held that distinction.)

"We fully expect Shanghai Stock Exchange to secure the crown jewel in the global ranking [of IPO venues] by the end of 2020," Edward Au, managing partner of Deloitte China's southern region, told CNN Business. Hong Kong will likely rank second overall, he predicts.

Raising Shanghai's profile

A major factor behind China's IPO boom is Beijing's desire to rely less on foreign money and technology, and expand the amount of oversight it has over prized businesses.

Historically, companies that list in Shanghai have been big, state-owned banks, energy and real estate firms. Other major Chinese businesses, especially those in tech, usually turn to Wall Street or Hong Kong to find investors because of barriers to listing in the mainland, including a prohibition on dual-class shares, which give corporate executives more power.

But that has been changing. President Xi Jinping's campaign for self-reliance has intensified as Beijing fights a brutal trade and technology war with the United States.

The Nasdaq-like Star Market, which debuted on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in July 2019, is an example of that shift. In a first for mainland China, the Star Market allowed companies that are unprofitable to list. A US-style IPO registration system also streamlined the process to apply for a public offering, giving issuers and investors more control over pricing and timing. Companies were also allowed to offer dual-class shares, as exchanges in New York and Hong Kong do.

"We need to encourage and support 'hard technology' firms to list" on the Star Market, Xi said during a visit to Shanghai last November. He cited a desire to "break the foreign stranglehold on us in certain key technologies."

In the 15 months since the Star Market launched, nearly 200 companies have listed and raised a combined $40 billion — not counting Ant Group. After the financial tech firm completes its listing, the Star Market will have accounted for 60% of mainland China's IPO market this year.

Hong Kong remains vital

Hong Kong, meanwhile, remains home to one of the region's most important stock exchanges — and has become a popular "compromise" for Chinese companies that already trade overseas but want stronger roots closer to home, according to Brock Silvers, chief investment officer for Kaiyuan Capital, a private equity fund based in Shanghai.

Alibaba decided in late 2019 to hold a secondary offering in the Asian financial hub, which in recent years has loosened the restrictions that drove the Chinese firm to chose Wall Street for its record-breaking 2014 IPO in the first place. The company's return to Asia was touted as a big homecoming.

China's worsening relationship with the United States has spurred even more Chinese companies to choose their home country over New York, or at least hold secondary offerings there. Many companies that listed in Shanghai or Hong Kong this year did so because of fears that the United States is becoming a more hostile place for Chinese companies to court investors.

Tech firms NetEase and JD.com, which both trade in New York, made clear in corporate filings this year that they think the United States is becoming more hostile toward Chinese companies as regulators and lawmakers consider new rules that would lead to stricter oversight. Both held secondary listings in Hong Kong.

In recent months, Hong Kong has made changes that could attract more Chinese tech firms. Hang Seng Indexes, the city's leading index compiler, announced in July that it would launch a Nasdaq-like technology index to track the largest tech firms that trade in the city.

Hang Seng Indexes also changed rules in May to allow companies that have chosen Hong Kong for their secondary listing to appear on the city's benchmark index. That paved the way for the index to add Alibaba and Xiaomi as Hang Seng constituents in September.

China might not be on top for long

Shanghai's IPO dominance — along with that of Greater China — might be fleeting, though.

Silvers, of Kaiyuan Capital, noted that mainland Chinese markets remain a lot less open than others.

Beijing still maintains strict control over capital in China. The yuan is also not freely convertible, and the legal environment in China is not a favorite of international business.

Silvers added that there are only so many "homegrown champions" who can return to China and launch public offerings.

"Local markets may still require significant further opening measures before established non-Chinese companies begin to seek listings," he said, adding that for the current trend to continue, China's appeal has to extend far beyond the subset of big Chinese firms that are listing.

Silvers outlined three scenarios: The trend of Chinese companies coming home to list could either fade, or extend to mid-sized Chinese companies overseas. Beijing could also build on its momentum to "further open and internationalize."

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Week In Politics: What The Polls Are Saying, Days Before Election Day - NPR

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With just days to go, the 2020 campaign is proving to be a referendum on Donald Trump's presidency more than anything else.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

More than 1.5 million people have already voted in Wisconsin. Voters have cast nearly 8 million ballots in Florida, 9 million in Texas, more than the total number of votes for president there in 2016. We begin this hour with NPR senior Washington editor and correspondent Ron Elving. Ron, thanks so much for being with us.

RON ELVING, BYLINE: Happy Halloween, Scott.

SIMON: Ron, four years ago, the pollsters said it was going one way. It went another way. How do you read the polls now?

ELVING: With extreme caution, Scott. The 2016 polls were actually pretty good on the national numbers, well within the margin of error. But some of the key states were wrong and by more than the margin of error. Pollsters in those states are acutely aware of this history, and they've been looking long and hard at what happened. Among other things, there was a late break among the undecided four years ago, and it favored Donald Trump. There was also some falloff among Democrats that may have been due to complacency. That's a little less likely to happen this year. That said, this time around, it will probably take even more egregious error than we saw four years ago if President Trump is going to reverse the advantage that we now see for Democrat Joe Biden.

SIMON: And as we've gotten closer and closer to Election Day, the president has taken from diminishing the pandemic to really outright mocking it, even as coronavirus cases surge again to record heights.

ELVING: You know, it may be heartening to hear that message if you are someone who takes his cues straight from the president, directly from the president. We heard that from Donald Trump Jr. and Sr. this week. But let's say you're more inclined to trust other sources of information, such as perhaps the doctors who have been sidelined from the president's task force in recent months. In that case, it would seem just bizarre to claim that we're turning the corner or crushing the virus, two claims the president has made in recent days, when last week we set a new record for new cases at half a million a week. So even with a somewhat lower mortality rate, we're still producing frightening numbers of fatalities. And we seem to be headed toward 400,000 dead early in the new year just in this country.

SIMON: And it's only fair to wonder, Ron - isn't it? - that the president's dismissal of the pandemic - well, to ask, does it affect federal policy?

ELVING: You know, to be blunt, the COVID-19 task force - Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, some of the other people that we were hearing from back in the spring - seems to have been, let us say, dovetailed into the president's reelection effort, perhaps co-opted to some degree by the president's reelection effort. And maybe we shouldn't be surprised at this point, but the idea that information is being blocked or distorted for this purpose at this point in this pandemic is chilling.

SIMON: Joe Biden question - back in the primaries, he was flailing at one point, earned a reputation as a compromise candidate, not at the head of new movements. The candidacy obviously looks pretty strong now. He's run for office and won a lot of times. Is this at the same time mostly a referendum on President Trump?

ELVING: It is a referendum on Donald Trump, and that is just what you want if you're challenging a president. If the controversy is about the incumbent in the midst of difficult times, that gives the out party an obvious advantage. If there's more controversy about the challenger, the incumbent tends to win, which is why the president's campaign has been so busy trying to generate controversies about the Bidens.

SIMON: And let's finally remind our friends and listeners, we might not get the results Tuesday night, right? It might take several days, several weeks.

ELVING: Yes. Some of the Sunbelt states - Arizona, Florida, North Carolina - it's possible we might get results before we go to bed. But that's not a guarantee of anything. It's just possible. Otherwise, we're going to be waiting throughout the week, probably, for Pennsylvania and maybe also Michigan and Wisconsin to count their mountains of mailed-in ballots.

SIMON: NPR's Ron Elving, thanks so much for being with us.

ELVING: Thank you, Scott.

Copyright © 2020 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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The moment of truth for stock-market investors? Election Day looms and the most crucial stretch of 2020 awaits - MarketWatch

As the market falls and investor fear builds, assessing the odds of a year-end comeback - CNBC

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A trader talks on his phone outside the New York Stock Exchange in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, October 2, 2020.

Carlo Allegri | Reuters

Scared enough yet?

Yes, it's that time in a stock-market pullback when the question turns to whether enough concern has surfaced to displace complacency.

Year-end rallies into the winter happen more often than not, but they tend to be born in a fearful fall when investors start to doubt a fourth-quarter flourish will happen.

Last week's 5.6% drop in the S&P 500 — which hammered many of the best 2020 performers and took the index back to a 9% slide from its peak almost two months ago — didn't quite generate an obvious frightful crescendo.

Yet the three-week sell-off has punctured the Street's easy confidence of a fourth-quarter ramp, forced fast money out of the trendy trades and stoked more hedging ahead of the election. It's a start.

It should be said, the typical measures of investor attitudes haven't reached fearful extremes, or at least hadn't by mid-week. In fact, several readings are best characterized as a moderation of the elevated optimism from a few weeks ago. These would include the weekly Investors Intelligence survey of investment advisors, still showing near 60% bulls as of last week, and the National Association of Active Investment Managers weekly equity-exposure index, shown here.

Yet options traders have shown more nervousness, with heavier buying of puts to play the downside. Corporate insiders have largely stopped selling their shares. And investors have stampeded out of faddish speculative plays such as special purpose acquisition companies. The CNN Fear & Greed Index is down to 30 on a 1-100 scale, well into fear territory. The ETF that tracks SPACs — Defiance Next Gen SPAC (SPAK) — is down 14% since it was listed just one month ago.

Unusual bonds move

More notable than outright anxiety, perhaps, is a sense of confusion over the unusual behavior across asset markets.

Most conspicuous was the selling of Treasury bonds right alongside the stock-market weakness. Far from enjoying a safety bid, bonds backed off and the 10-year Treasury yield finished at 0.87%, a near-five-month high.

As noted here last week, explanations for the lift in yields are varied, from expectations of big fiscal spending post-election to catch-up with other risk assets to a general reluctance of investors to bet big on any assets ahead of the election.

Bespoke Investment Group after Wednesday's 3.5% dump in the S&P 500 noted there had been only 24 prior days since 1962 when the S&P fell at least 3% and the 10-year Treasury yield rose. Does there need to be the usual panicky rush into Treasuries before stocks can make a bottom – or is this "sell everything" impulse sufficient panic in itself?"

The breakdown, for now, in what has become the expected inverse movement of equities and bonds embedded in many investment models likely knocked some traders off-balance. The RPAR Risk Parity ETF (RPAR), which tracks popular hedge-fund strategies that combine stocks and bonds bought with leverage in search of smooth returns, has rolled over.

Credit markets, though, have stayed relatively steady against the equity-market tremors, which arguably would not be the case if the market were undergoing a bout of stress over Covid shutdowns smothering the economic recovery.

And Chris Verrone of Strategas Group is citing the relative strength of copper vs. gold and consumer discretionary stocks vs. staples as signs the market isn't losing its grip on the economic-improvement narrative yet.

Such a rethink certainly could be yet to come, of course. There was plenty of dissonance in the market messages last month. The ongoing, two-month retrenchment in mega-cap tech stocks seems in part related to a sense that they have pulled forward demand during the Covid hunker-down quarters. Netflix and Facebook said as much. Meantime, Microsoft, SAP and Amazon hinted at slower business spending on tech services.

Yet the surge in Covid cases and re-imposed restrictions in Europe and some U.S. states are holding back the most obvious beneficiaries of a return to normal such as travel, chain-retail and restaurant stocks.

The election, of course, is on everyone's mind yet it's hard to find something smart to say about its likely immediate impact on markets – except to sow hesitancy and headline-sensitivity in the preceding days.

S&P 500 key levels

And, fittingly, the market finished last week in a way to maximize the ambiguity. The S&P 500 broke down below the 3400 level it had barely held the week before, which dropped it back into the September correction zone and had every trader watching 3230 as a decisive level. This is the September closing low, the peak from June from the initial rally off the March low, and the year-to-date break-even line.

So, as if by script, the index dipped twice Friday into the 3230s before rallying in the final half-hour to finish at 3269. It's a sloppy-looking chart, undeserving of the full benefit of the doubt, with some traders now eyeing the 200-day moving average at 3100 as a plausible true test of the bull market's fortitude.

Who's to say the colliding storms of pandemic, politics and positioning won't get us there in a more conclusive flush and flare-up of fear? In markets, trampolines can be disguised as trap doors and vice versa, so no wonder folks are scared to jump.

Still, these moves don't always rush to the "What if?" extremes, certainly not always in a straight line.

The tape is getting pretty oversold by several measures. By Friday about half of all S&P 500 stocks were at least 20% off their high. Stocks have traded quite poorly off earnings coming in far ahead of forecasts, yet forward profit forecasts have nonetheless held up.

The S&P's valuation on year-ahead earnings estimates, while by no means cheap, is now down near 20 from 23 two months ago. And whatever the chances of a Covid vaccine approval now, it is nearer and no less likely than it was a couple months ago.

These factors make it a perfectly plausible spot for a rebound attempt and suggest the risk-reward tradeoff for long-term investors has improved as stocks have come down — which is almost a law of nature. Even if the short-term action in the market is at least as hard to handicap as are elections and pandemics. 

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Market Pulse: Is Bitcoin Decoupling From Stocks? | Market Insights - TradeStation

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If we learned anything in March, it’s that Bitcoin can be susceptible to selloffs in the broader market. However it’s been bucking that tide recently.

Click here to view the related idea and chart analysis on TradingView.

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David Russell is VP of Market Intelligence at TradeStation Group. Drawing on nearly two decades of experience as a financial journalist and analyst, his background includes equities, emerging markets, fixed-income and derivatives. He previously worked at Bloomberg News, CNBC and E*TRADE Financial. Russell systematically reviews countless global financial headlines and indicators in search of broad tradable trends that present opportunities repeatedly over time. Customers can expect him to keep them appraised of sector leadership, relative strength and the big stories – especially those overlooked by other commentators. He’s also a big fan of generating leverage with options to limit capital at risk.

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Stock market predictor of next US president too close to call - Fox Business

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Nasdaq Executive Vice President and North American markets Tal Cohen discusses the impact of the presidential election and the coronavirus pandemic on the markets.

Superstitious stock-market investors will be glued to their computer screens Monday, searching for omens among arcane trading data that might signal the winner in the next day's presidential election.

Continue Reading Below

One of the most widely followed signs remains unclear: The performance of the benchmark S&P 500 in the three months leading up to the vote.

The benchmark S&P 500, which has predicted the winner of 87% of all presidential elections and every one since 1984, has slipped 0.35% from July 31 through Friday. The key level to watch for Monday's close is 3,271.12.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
SP:500	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.

Typically, a decline has signaled victory for the challenger while an increase signified the incumbent would remain in power, though not all traders buy into that belief.

WALL STREET DONATIONS FAVOR TRUMP RIVAL JOE BIDEN BY SMALLER MARGIN THAN HILLARY CLINTON

"In order to draw any conclusion, you need a certain amount of data," said Blair Hull, chairman of Chicago-based Hull Tactical Funds. "The number of elections we've had is such a small number that I would completely discount that."

As traders debate the accuracy of the S&P 500's prediction and other less-popular indicators, hoping for a money-making edge, one thing everyone agrees on is the extraordinary amount of uncertainty priced into the market.

Volatility contracts, which are already trading at elevated levels, indicate the market expects even greater price swings between now and the inauguration.

Contracts that expire on Wednesday, the day after the election, are trading at 37. Volatility remains elevated, near 38, for the few days after the election before dipping into the low 30s in December.

Instruments stretching through the Jan. 20 inauguration, meanwhile, are all trading higher than contracts that expired on Friday between 23 and 24. Volatility typically trades in the high teens during periods of calm.

STOCKS HISTORICALLY WIN IN THIS ELECTION SCENARIO

“The market fears uncertainty more than anything,” Anthony Saliba, CEO of the Chicago-based Matrix Execution Group, an executing broker-dealer that specializes in options and equities, told FOX Business.

The hump in volatility pricing suggests we’re “probably going to have a contested election,” he said, pointing to a flood of mail-in ballots in key battleground states North Carolina and Pennsylvania that can be counted for up to nine days following the election.

Even after the votes are tallied, the possibility exists of an event similar to the Bush-Gore recount in the 2000 election where the outcome is effectively decided by the Supreme Court.

“Unless you get a landslide, I think that happens this time,” Saliba said.

Hull, meanwhile, thinks the market is “anticipating too much uncertainty” and that this could be one of those instances where “everyone is caught off guard" and a winner is determined on Election Day, or soon thereafter.

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No matter who wins the election, one thing is for sure, according to Hull.

“There's no information about whether a Democrat or Republican is going to create greater returns,” he said, citing data going back to 1900.

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Stock Market Suffers Worst Week Since March. Here’s Why. - Barron's

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NYSE

Something freaked out the stock market this past week—and investors are still wondering what hit them.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 1833.97 points, or 6.5%, to 26,501.60, while the S&P 500 index dropped 5.6%, to 3269.96, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 5.5%, to 10,911.59.

Pick your worst nightmare, and chances are it had something to do with the market’s worst weekly decline—and its worst month—since March. Fear of catching Covid-19? Cases continued spiking and continue to set daily records. Fear of an unruly presidential election? Polls indicate that the contest between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden is as close as ever. Afraid that the economy is heading for another slide? Stimulus appeared dead after the Senate voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett and went home. Heck, for all we know, the market might even have Samhainophobia, or a fear of Halloween, given the speed that it sold off this past week.

Of course, none of these were exactly a surprise, but that doesn’t really matter. The market simply decided, after weeks of sideways trading, that these things were suddenly to be feared in a way they weren’t the week before. Which is, of course, its prerogative.

Still, it’s hard to tell just what spooked the market. If it were Covid, we’d expect stay-at-home stocks that would benefit from another lockdown to catch a bid. Peloton Interactive (ticker: PTON), whose bikes have become a replacement for gyms among the well-to-do, fell 10% this past week. Campbell Soup (CPB), which benefited from hoarding during the initial lockdown, finished down 3.9%. Activision Blizzard (ATVI), whose games provide something to do when you’re stuck at home, was down 6.6%. Even Treasury bonds lost value this past week, with the 10-year yield rising 0.181 percentage point to 0.858%.

“Uncertainty is ruling markets, and in doubt, investors are derisking portfolios by stepping to the sidelines, hence the absence of a flight-to-safety in bonds,” explains Canaccord Genuity analyst Martin Roberge.

What’s strange is that fundamentally, everything seems to be pretty OK. Jobless claims fell to the lowest level of the crisis, or that third-quarter gross-domestic product, though backward-looking, grew at an annual rate of 33.1%. And on Friday, we learned that personal income grew by 0.9% in September as employers raised wages, that personal spending rose 1.4%, and that the University of Michigan Sentiment index and the Chicago purchasing managers index both topped expectations. “The numbers have been surprising to the upside,” says Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial. “The concern is that we slow down, that we stall.”

Even corporate earnings suggest that conditions have gotten better—and should continue to get better. You wouldn’t know it from the returns of stocks like Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), and Twitter (TWTR). Still, with 60% of companies in the S&P 500 having reported earnings, companies have been beating at an 81% clip. While earnings are down 12.5% from a year ago, that’s nine percentage points better than predicted at the start of reporting season, observes Lindsey Bell, chief investment strategist at Ally Invest. Guidance has been good enough for analysts to maintain their outlook for double-digit growth in 2021.

“Right now, we’re bracing for more rough days ahead, but we’re feeling good about the earnings outlook,” Bell says. “Earnings can help drive the market after this particular storm, too.”

And what a storm it’s been. There’s been a massive amount of selling, a sign of “wholesale, get-me-out selling pressure,” says Sundial Capital Research’s Jason Goepfert. Such selling doesn’t happen often, especially when the stock market is still trading above its 200-day moving average. When it does occur, it has been generally good for stocks over the medium term: The S&P 500 has risen over the next two months 71% of the time, with an average gain of 2.3%.

With any luck, we will know who has won the election by Wednesday, and that will be one less thing for the market to worry about. Two other events could take the spotlight off the election and the virus no matter who wins. The first is this coming Friday’s nonfarm payroll number, which is expected to show some 650,000 jobs added by the U.S. in October.

Read more Trader:General Electric’s Stock Price Is Stuck. Here’s What It Will Take to Get It Rising Again.

Even more important will be November’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, which takes place this coming Wednesday and Thursday. Once again, the Federal Reserve will have a chance to reassure investors that it still has their backs, explains J.P. Morgan strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou. And it’s the liquidity it provides, that could keep the market rallying over the medium- to long-term—even without fiscal stimulus.

“We believe that, similar to September, this month’s correction offers a good entry point to equity investors over the medium to longer term once U.S. election uncertainty subsides next week,” he writes.

If nothing else, there will be one less thing to fear.

Write to Ben Levisohn at Ben.Levisohn@barrons.com

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Politics Podcast: There Just Isn’t Good Evidence That ‘Shy’ Trump Voters Exist - FiveThirtyEight

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By Galen Druke and Nate Silver

 

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This is the final(!) preelection installment of Model Talk on the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast. Galen Druke talks to editor-in-chief Nate Silver about the latest polling shifts in key battleground states and whether there is any reason to believe that “shy Trump voters” will deliver an upset win for the president on Election Day. (The evidence suggests there isn’t.)

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.

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Twitter, Tech Stocks Drag Market Down As Shares Close Out Worst Week Since March - Deadline

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UPDATED with market close: Stocks plunged Friday as the market posted its worst week since March. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 157 points, or 0.59%, but the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq were lower, respectively, by 1.21% and a hefty 2.45%. Tech dragged shares lower, with Twitter the biggest loser, ended the session down 21.11% at $4.36.

PREVIOUSLY: Tech stocks drove the market lower Friday as investors worked through an earnings avalanche from five of the world’s biggest companies and mostly didn’t love what they saw.

Twitter is taking the biggest hit, down nearly 20% midday after its daily active user numbers disappointed for the three months ended in September following several consecutive quarters of growth. In earnings reported Thursday afternoon, The Jack Dorsey-led company also cautioned on costs and noted that it’s hard to predict how advertisers might react with the U.S. presidential election looming next Tuesday.

Facebook, Apple and Amazon are trading lower too, down 5%-6%.

Twitter’s Ad Revenue Climbs 15%, But User Growth Slows From Earlier In The Year

Google parent Alphabet is the lone bright spot in the group, up about 4% on a solid recovery in search and advertising, including impressive growth at YouTube. A pending DOJ antitrust investigation is getting shrugged off.

Facebook blew away ad sales (up 22% year-on-year) but reported users declining slightly in North America in the third quarter from the second. CEO Mark Zuckerberg had warned months ago that the social media giant could see engagement moderate as the pandemic receded.

The DJIA was down 360 points, or 1.36%. The S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq were lower, respectively, by 1.41% and a hefty 2.48%.

“In a nutshell, last night expectations from the Street and the overall market was hoping for blow-out results from FAANG tech stalwarts, with Apple and Amazon leading the way, and ultimately came away disappointed, with tech stocks selling off this morning on the news,” said analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities in a note Friday. But he and others found the numbers pretty solid overall and the market reaction overdone — particularly in Apple’s case, Ives said.

The tech giant is getting punished for soft iPhone sales, which declined year-over- year. Ives attributed that to a delayed launch of the newest iPhone –  the iPhone 12 — which hit four-to-six weeks later than usual this year. Customers hit a pause on buying as they waited for that, he said, but noted that pre-order activity is tracking more than twice that of the iPhone 11 a year ago “and should translate into a massive holiday quarter.”

Senate Republicans Target Twitter And Other Tech CEOs, While Democrats See A Partisan “Sham”

On Twitter, Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein said Friday, “We would take advantage of the pullback in TWTR to add to positions.” He raised his price target on the stock to $55 from $46 and reiterated an “outperform” rating. The shares are changing hands today at around $41.

At Amazon, there seemed to be concerns over COVID-19 related costs and a lack of clarity around key upcoming holiday sales.

The tech selloff Friday even dragged in Netflix despite news of a price hike yesterday that Wall Street applauded. It is also a FAANG stock (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) and is down 5%.

These stocks are investor favorites, have seen sharp runups this year and tent to get pummeled as a group when investors are cranky. Perhaps all five shouldn’t report earning within the same half hour on the same afternoon next quarter.

Friday is closing out a very rocky week for stocks — the rockiest in some time — amid rising anxiety across global markets about a spike in COVID-19 infections. Shutdowns have been re-imposed in major European countries Germany, Italy and France. Daily COVID cases in the U.S. reached a record high on Thursday with experts warning that death rates could triple by mid-January.

There were 88,521 new cases of the coronavirus reported in the U.S. on Thursday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University reported by CNN — 9,540 more cases than Wednesday.

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And because we are dealing with Donald Trump, all of that normal end-of-campaign stuff has been made much, much worse. Trump is at the say-anything-and-do-anything stage of the campaign -- particularly as polling suggests he is a clear underdog in Tuesday's election.

Amid all of the darkness and terrible-ness (not a word, but you get the point) I'm here to offer you a reminder that not everything is, in fact, totally awful. And that politics can sometimes be a noble pursuit taken on by people committed to public service.

Which brings me to an ad that Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz who posted on his Twitter feed on Thursday. It features Walz as well as his three most recent predecessors in the job, Mark Dayton, Jesse Ventura and Tim Pawlenty -- urging Minnesotans to vote.

That's four governors from three different parties(!) making a call for call for calm and civility in this wildest of moments.

The four governors assured Minnesotans that a delay in announcing a winner is a) expected and b) proof the system is working. (Contrast that with President Trump's repeated insistence that the election "should END on November 3rd," like he tweeted on Friday).

"Our state is proud to have one of the safest and most secure election systems in the country," says former Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

"You can have faith that your vote will be counted," says former Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton.

"With so many of us voting by mail, it may take a little longer to verify a winner," says Walz.

"And that's OK. It's by design," says Pawlenty.

"A delay just means that our system is working and that we're counting every single ballot," says former Reform Party governor Jesse Ventura.

Imagine that. Political leaders -- both current and former -- acting like, well, leaders. Educating the public rather than trying to skew reality for their own political benefit. (Worth noting: All four governors are shown walking in with their masks on, and putting them back on ant the end of the video.)

That a message like this feels so stunning and so different serves as a reminder of just how far Trump -- and his decidedly unpresidential approach to the presidency -- has changed our expectations from our leaders over these past four years. It was once common ground for politicians of all stripes to urge citizens to a) vote and b) know that their vote was fairly counted. Trump has chosen, for political reasons, to make war on that most basic of democratic assumptions as well as virtually every other "norm" including the guidelines set to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.

"25,000, people want to be there, and they say you can only have 250 people, so they thought I'd cancel," Trump carped on Friday about a campaign rally in, you guess it, Minnesota. "But I'm not canceling."

Politics doesn't have to be utterly awful and soul-crushing. It can be unified and, dare I say it, uplifting. Watch the Minnesota governors' ad. And remember how things once were -- and could be again.

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Now, some 30 years later, it's impossible for my kids to not pay attention. Their lives have been deeply impacted by the decisions made by someone far away. Their parents are emotional, the politicians are emotional and sometimes, adults express these emotions in a manner children are all too familiar with.

The election season civic lessons imparted to me as a child no longer feel adequate. Today's kids have big questions and big feelings about this election year, and it's up to parents to help them process.

Children are experiencing politics more intensely

There have been few moments in recent history in which children's lives have been so directly affected by politics -- think the 1918 flu pandemic, the Depression, World War I and World War II, the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"I think a lot about how children are on the front lines of all major political challenges today," said Tamara Mann Tweel, program director at the Teagle Foundation and co-founder of Civic Spirit, a civic education initiative for middle and high school teachers and their students.

"They have to do active shooter drills, they are directly confronted with climate change, and they are truly on the front lines of Covid, with school closures. Politics are not abstract for them. They're corporeal," she said.

This reality could help students grow into more active citizens as they see firsthand how decisions made from on high can affect them personally, Mann Tweel said.

But there is also a risk of trauma. "This could also end up being destabilizing and overwhelming (to children). And the level of hostility can be scary."

Then there is the political discourse, which has changed substantially in the era of President Donald Trump. My husband and I put on the first presidential debate assuming our 7-year-old would turn to a book or Legos.

He was, like much of the nation, transfixed. What's more, he attempted to psychoanalyze some of the name-calling using the same tools I had taught him to digest playground spats. "Mom, sometimes when someone calls someone else dumb, it's because they're worried about being dumb themselves."

The debate unsettled him, and I felt I myself was to blame. I had, absentmindedly, allowed him to witness a complicated and uncomfortable chapter in American politics without giving him the practical or emotional tools to understand it.

Give them a sense of control

It's important to not let the anger and noise remain anger and noise, Mann Tweel said. "You need to help them see how they are part of a country that they want to improve." The key is teaching them that, even though they can't vote, they do have some agency.

You could start with a conversation about how it feels to go to school during the pandemic and what they would want elected officials to know about it, she suggested. They could even write a letter to local politicians expressing their fears and frustrations.

Help them understand the rules

Children also benefit from understanding that, just like in their home, there are rules in the United States, and even our leaders aren't always free to do whatever they want.

Kerry Sautner, chief learning officer at the National Constitution Center, suggested reading the US Constitution as a good place to start. "The Constitution tells us whose job it is to do what, and what power citizens have," she said.

Children might be interested in understanding how voting works and how the government is structured. As important as the US President is, there is a lot more to the federal, state and local governments, and they might not be aware of it.

It also helps children understand that Americans have a tradition of believing in freedom, equality and common good, even if there is a history of not allowing everyone their rights and rigorous debate about how we achieve those goals. As they get older, children can begin to understand that our rules don't always align with these values, and what we can do about it.

Teach them to try to see both sides

It's good practice, Sautner said, to have children explore how people on the other side of an issue might think, even if everyone in the family disagrees with their position.

"You need to teach them how to listen to others," Sautner said. "Civic engagement is a learned experience. We don't just turn 18 and know how to be a citizen."

You can ask your children why they wear a mask and why some people might not want to. Then help them consider what is at stake: Do you think it's important for other people to wear masks? Why? What is the difference between what you do at home or when you are alone and what you do outside your home or when you are in a community?

"This is a good way to introduce them to the ideas of individual and collective freedom — even if it is clear that because of a public health crisis it is incumbent on us all to side with collective freedom," Mann Tweel said.

Use stories from history

Use narratives as much as possible to help kids understand politics, Sautner suggested. This helps build empathy, and makes the struggles real.

"They need to understand this is a system, but you can't forget that in the system there are people," she said. "Stories help them hold on to all the information a thousand times better."

When one of her sons was in third grade, he got drawn into the story of Ruby Bridges. In 1960, Bridges became the first Black student in the South to integrate an elementary school.

He learned about her story through books, and a Disney movie, and it led to him asking a series of questions that quickly turned into a civics lesson. Why were people upset about a Black girl going to a White school? What were the police doing about it? What could her parents do about it? "He wanted to understand the adults around her, and who had authority in the situation," she said.

Teach them about how change happened in the past, and they will better understand how change can happen in the future.

Remember each family, and child, is different

Considering the near-infinite differences in political views, family dynamics and child psychology, there is not a one-size-fits-all way to help your children make sense of political life.

Melissa Braunstein, a politically conservative mother of four ages 9 and younger in the Washington, DC, area, said her main aim is to protect her kids from election anxiety. She does this, in large part, by avoiding bad-mouthing political opponents.

"I don't sit my kids down and say this person is a good person and this person is a bad person," she said. "We live in an area where nearly everyone else votes the opposite way. I don't want them to think that anyone who disagrees with them is a bad person."

If her kids ask questions about a politician's behavior, she tries to make it about conflicting value systems, rather than the individual.

Brady Dewar, a politically progressive dad of two children, ages 7 and 4, in Oakland, California, tries to keep his kid's attention away from the nastiness and toward what small actions they can take. His children know which candidate he and his husband prefer, but they try to keep their anxiety around the opponent away from their kids.

"All of their involvement is driven by their questions: What is going on with Donald Trump? What is going on with all the homeless people?" he said.

His kids have attended marches, written get-out-the-vote letters and delivered sandwiches to the homeless. Through it all, Dewar said they keep it focused on how they can make things better, rather than the nitty-gritty of why things are wrong.

"We try to come up with a positive message that they can understand and is relatively universal," he said.

In our home, we've been making a point to ask our children what questions they have about politics, what they are worried about and if they would like us to help them come up with ideas on how to take action.

In addition to helping relieve their anxieties, this exercise also sets a precedent that I hope will stick with them for life: Their voice matters, their concerns matter, and there is almost always something to be done about it.

Elissa Strauss is a regular contributor to CNN, where she writes about the politics and culture of parenthood.

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The current day trading boom will end as these frenzies always do: in tears. While we wait for the inevitable crash, let’s review not only why day traders are doomed but also why most people shouldn’t trade, or even invest in, individual stocks.

Day trading basically means rapidly buying and selling investments, hoping to profit from small price fluctuations. Brokerages have reported a surge in trading and new accounts this year, starting with March’s stock market crash when investors rushed in looking for bargains. As pandemic lockdowns kept people from their jobs and classrooms, trading continued to soar, especially among young adults.

The poster child for this gold rush is Robinhood, a commission-free investing app that uses behavioral nudges to encourage people to trade. Robinhood added over 3 million accounts this year and in June logged more trades than any of the established, publicly traded brokerages. More than half of its customers are opening their first investment account, the company says.

People can start trading with small amounts of money because Robinhood offers fractional shares. In addition to stocks and mutual funds, the app allows trading in options, cryptocurrencies and gold. Customers start out with a margin account, which allows them to borrow money to trade and amplify both their gains and their losses.

Alexander Kearns, 20, is one example of what can go wrong. The University of Nebraska student killed himself after seeing a $730,165 negative balance in his Robinhood account. The novice trader may have misunderstood a potential loss on part of an options trade that he made using borrowed money as a loss on the whole transaction. In reality, he had $16,000 cash in his account when he died.

Research has shown that the vast majority of day traders lose money, and only about 1 percent consistently get better returns than a low-cost index fund. A rising stock market, and a flood of inexperienced and excitable investors willing to bid up stock prices, has convinced more than a few day traders that they’re part of that 1 percent. They’re being egged on by the few people who actually will make money: the hucksters selling seminars, e-books and strategies that purport to teach you how to successfully trade.

Stocks don’t always go up

Stocks overall are an excellent way to gain wealth over the long term. If you can weather the downturns, stocks historically have offered good returns.

Those downturns can be doozies, however. Stocks lost half their value during the Great Recession that started December 2007. The market lost nearly 90 percent of its value in the early years of the Great Depression.

Extended downturns have popped previous day trading bubbles, including the one that formed during the dot-com boom. The Nasdaq composite stock index rose 400 percent in five years, only to lose all of those gains from March 2000 to October 2002.

Markets that go down eventually come back up. That’s not true of individual stocks. Any single stock can lose value, sometimes all the way to zero, and never recover.

The sensible way to hedge that risk is diversification. That means buying stocks in many, many companies, including companies of different sizes, in different industries and in different countries. That’s prohibitively expensive for most individual investors, which is why mutual funds and exchange-traded funds are a better bet.

There’s no such thing as a free trade

Another way to grow wealth is to minimize investing costs. That means trading less, not more, because trading incurs costs even when there are no commissions involved.

Investments held more than a year benefit from favorable capital gains tax rates, for example. Those held less than a year are taxed as income if the trade wasn’t made in a tax-deferred account such as an IRA.

Another way cost is incurred is in what’s known as the bid/ask spread. The banks and financial institutions that facilitate trading in various stocks are called market makers. They offer to sell stocks at a certain price (the ask price) and will purchase at a slightly lower price (the bid price). People who trade stocks instantly lose a little money on each transaction because of this difference. That’s not a big deal for infrequent traders, but the costs add up if you churn stocks in and out of your portfolio.

The biggest potential cost, though, is that every trade exposes your portfolio to the many ways we humans have of screwing up our money. We’re loss-averse and we want to avoid regret, so we hang on to losing stocks. We think that we can predict the future or that it will reflect the recent past, when this year should have taught us that we can’t and it won’t.

We also think we know more than we do, a cognitive bias known as overconfidence. If you’re determined to trade, or day trade, don’t gamble more than you can afford to lose, because you almost certainly will.

This article was written by NerdWallet and was originally published by the Associated Press. Liz Weston is a columnist at NerdWallet. She is a Certified Financial Planner and author of five money books, including Your Credit Score. Read more

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Cartoon Carousel

Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here's an offering of the best of this week's crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.

By POLITICO STAFF

10/30/2020 04:30 AM EDT

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The stock market is hugely overvalued when judged against almost any historical standard.

That’s...

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1. Stocks set to drop after Dow breaks 4-day losing streak

The New York Stock Exchange is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, October 2, 2020.

Carlo Allegri | Reuters

Dow futures, down more than 400 points earlier Friday, pointed to an over 150 point decline at Wall Street's open as Apple and other big technology stocks sank following after-the-bell earnings. Record new daily coronavirus cases in the U.S. also kept a lid on stocks in Friday's premarket, one day after the Dow Jones Industrial Average snapped a four-session losing streak. However, as of Thursday's close, the Dow was approaching 10% correction territory and tracking for weekly declines of 6%, following the Dow's 943 point plunge on Wednesday.

Two Dow stocks reported earnings Friday morning: Honeywell and Chevron. Honeywell shares dipped in the premarket after the industrial giant Friday beat estimates on third-quarter earnings and revenue. Shares of Chevron were steady in the premarket after the U.S. oil giant Friday delivered a third-quarter profit. Analysts had expected a loss. However, revenue missed expectations.

2. Big Tech saw losers and one winner after earnings

Shares of Apple, Amazon and Facebook were lower in the premarket after they reported quarterly results late Thursday.

• Apple saw iPhone sales slump 21% in its fiscal fourth quarter, though the normal September launch of new iPhones was delayed into October. Apple beat estimates on earnings and revenue.
• Amazon forecast wide fourth-quarter guidance, factoring in about $4 billion worth of coronavirus costs. Amazon reported better-than-expected third-quarter profit and revenue.
• Facebook warned of a "significant amount of uncertainty" for the coming year. The social media giant did exceed estimates on third-quarter earnings and revenue.

Tech's big winner: Shares of Alphabet surged over 6% in the premarket after the Google parent crushed expectations for third-quarter earnings and revenue. It saw strong advertising growth.

The big loser: Shares of Twitter plunged 15%, premarket, after the company posted its slowest quarterly user growth since late 2017. Twitter did beat estimates for third-quarter earnings and revenue.

3. Covid cases hit single-day, 7-day average records

People wear face masks while visiting Union Square as the city continues the re-opening efforts following restrictions imposed to slow the spread of coronavirus on October 24, 2020 in New York City.

Noam Galai | Getty Images

The latest surge in U.S. coronavirus cases is pushing total infections in the nation toward 9 million with at least 228,675 deaths. New daily cases hit a record of 88,521 on Thursday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The seven-day average of infections also hit an all-time high of 74,183, a 24% increase from a week ago.

Talks between Democrats and the White House on an addition Covid-19 stimulus package stalled Thursday, five days before the Nov. 3 election. Thursday morning, the government said the economy grew at its fastest pace ever in the third quarter, 33.1%, coming off its worst quarter in history due to the pandemic.

4. Trump, Biden make last-minute election pushes

U.S. President Donald Trump makes a fist as he walks after speaking in a campaign rally at Laughlin/Bullhead International Airport in Bullhead City, Arizona, October 28, 2020.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

President Donald Trump's final election push includes more huge rallies. He's playing defense Friday in Michigan and Wisconsin while trying to flip Minnesota. Trump's packed rallies are among the nation's biggest events held in defiance of coronavirus crowd restrictions.

Democratic U.S. presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a drive-in, Get Out the Vote campaign stop in Coconut Creek, Florida, U.S., October 29, 2020.

Brian Snyder | Reuters

Biden continues to hold less frequent, crowd-controlled events. On Friday, he's also in Minnesota as well as Iowa, a state Trump won in 2016. The former vice president has been maintaining his lead in the polls. Unlike four years ago, the gap between the presidential candidates does not seem to be closing in the final days of the race. However, Trump's path to reelection is still possible as swing state polls show several states neck-and-neck.

5. Walmart pulls guns, ammo off sales floors due to 'civil unrest' in some areas

A file photo of guns for sale at a WalMart store.

Getty Images

Walmart has removed guns and ammunition from sales floors in stores where those items had been displayed, citing pockets of "civil unrest" around the U.S. However, the retail giant will continue selling the items. The move comes as Philadelphia has seen days of looting and violent demonstrations following Monday's fatal shooting by police of Walter Wallace Jr., a 27-year-old Black man who officers said had refused repeated orders to drop a knife he was holding. Walmart pulled firearms and ammo from sales floors after the May police killing of George Floyd.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report. Follow all the developments on Wall Street in real-time with CNBC's live markets blog.

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