There has been one clear loser thus far in the outcome of the 2020 presidential elections and it is not the candidates. The polling industry has gotten it wrong twice in a row. Can the industry survive that kind of mistake?

 

As votes across the nation continue to be counted, the pollsters and the media, which count on those polling results, are asking how Vice President Joe Biden's 10-point lead nationwide could have evaporated in the blink of an eye. 

 

Political polling is a type of public opinion polling, which in the past (when done right), is a fairly accurate social science with established rules about sample size, random selection and margin of error. The top political polling organizations employ mathematical models and computer analysis to collect a response from the best representative sample of the voting public. Over the past three years, the Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling industry in the U.S. has averaged an annual growth rate of 2.3 percent to reach $20.6 billion in revenue. And yet, this multibillion-dollar industry would admit that there is still plenty of "art" in this science of political polling. 

 

Unfortunately for pollsters, it is the art side of interpretation that seems to have gone radically awry for the second time in eight years. In my opinion, it is sure to only heighten the suspicion and distrust many Americans already have towards polling after the 2016 performance.

 

During the last four years, there has been a lot of soul-searching among the polling community on what went wrong. Their answer: not much.  

 

The polling industry has argued that President Donald Trump's 2016 win fell within the normal statistical error implicit in all polls. Essentially, Trump beat the polls by just a few points in just a few states. So, from their point of view, the presidential polls were not that far off. However, at the state level, the polls were even less accurate, but the industry still maintained that they were within the normal range of accuracy.

 

Some pollsters, however, did adjust their methods of polling to improve their accuracy. One modification was to emphasize the importance of education. Polling organizations realized that they were missing some of the president's support in the last election by underrepresenting voters with little or no college education. Pollsters also placed more emphasis on where respondents lived. Did they live in a city, suburb or rural area, for example?

 

Another improvement was the decision to rely more on cell phones — instead of landlines — as a method of reaching respondents. This has had its own problems, however, since pollsters are finding that the response rate to phone calls is decreasing. At the same time, the costs to conduct high-quality polling are going up. Pollsters can still resort to online polls, but most firms believe online interviews are less accurate than live-caller polls result.

 

In preparation for this election, pollsters were worried that the pandemic could alter the accuracy of their polling in unpredictable ways. Some voters, for example, could tell a pollster they planned to vote, but a sudden spike in coronavirus cases in their area might force them to change their mind. They might avoid election day voting booths and opt to vote by mail or not at all. 

 

 The huge number of mail-in ballots alone might create uncertainty. Questions of accuracy, disqualifications, and court challenges might throw off the predictions in unpredicted ways.

 

Unfortunately, none of that matters in the minds of the public. The failure to hold the 8-9, even 10-point lead for Biden in this election was so far off the statistical margin of error that pollsters may not be able to dig their way out of the doghouse. But you can bet that they will try.

 

A definition of soft commodities refers to future contracts of substances that are grown, rather than extracted or mined. We know them best as food and fiber commodities, such as wheat or lumber. 

 

Shortages are occurring in everything from soybeans to wheat and it is not just in the United States. Readers might immediately think to blame the pandemic for this trend. You would be only partially correct. At the outset of the COVID-19 crisis, the hoarding of food in certain areas of the world did occur, but by April and May, despite the spread of the pandemic, food commodity prices stabilized and even toilet paper in this country was back on the shelves. 

 

However, the recent resurgence of the coronavirus in Europe and the United States might threaten the supply chains for certain foods once again. If lock-downs in the U.S. are re-instituted (as they are beginning to be in Europe right now), or the cases of COVID-19 begin to decimate the work force again, food prices could spike considerably. Readers might recall earlier in the year when some Midwest food processors were shut down. As a result, supplies of beef, chicken, and pork began to disappear from grocery shelves. Prices jumped and are still nowhere near their pre-pandemic levels. 

 

However, beyond the coronavirus threat, the real culprit sending prices skyrocketing is the weather. It is not my intention to debate global warning. Economics has a way of doing that for me. Consider this: the wheat farms of both the United States and Russia are dealing with serious drought, which is decimating harvests. The same is happening to the soybean fields in Brazil.

 

But while our hemisphere contends with drought, over in Southeast Asia, farmer's crops are drowning in too much rain. Flooding is occurring throughout the rice paddies and pam oil plantations in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The result of all this devastating weather has been higher and higher prices of everything from sugar to lumber to cooking oil. This is occurring at the least opportune time for billions of workers struggling to make ends meet because of the impact of this worldwide pandemic.

 

Compounding the crop shortages, are the decisions by multiple governments to safeguard their food supplies. In the event of another supply-chain disruption this winter, no country wants to be presented with a food shortage at home. Soft commodity buyers representing China, the Middle East and other governments are competing (while bidding up prices) for existing harvests.

 

And as grains of all kinds increase in price, so does the cost of livestock feed. When the cost of soybeans rises by 81 percent and corn by 56 percent, as it has in Brazil, you can just imagine what that does to the cost of pork, beef, and chicken production. It is a never-ending, upward spiral. The situation has already convinced many governments to remove import tariffs that simply add further costs to the equation. 

 

To be sure, the world still does have an ample inventory of crops, such as wheat, for this year with bumper crops expected in Australia, for example. But if the world's wild weather persists, in combination with another global surge in the pandemic, we could be facing even higher prices ahead for soft commodities. 

 

 

Hope springs eternal, but even the most strident bulls threw in the towel this week. American politics took precedence over the country's economic well-being once again, as both political parties refused to compromise on a stimulus deal.

 

But it wasn't only politics that spooked investors. Across the Atlantic, investors watched as COVID-19 outbreaks escalated across Europe. Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Italy reported new records in infections, while France announced a curfew in order to stem their own skyrocketing cases. In the U.K., Londoners are now banned from mixing with other households indoors.

 

In this country, despite denials by a large portion of the population, as well as some in government, coronavirus cases are surging across the nation. In the fall, schools, despite warnings by medical authorities, opened anyway with predictable results. Students became super spreaders, infecting their classmates and extending the infection into the surrounding communities. Now, U.S. medical experts are warning that the onset of cold weather and increased inside activities could generate a second resurgence of the coronavirus.

 

What could this mean for the U.S. markets and national economy? If we follow in the footsteps of the European Community, the U.S. could see an avalanche of new restrictions forced on individual cities and states, not by the government, but by the coronavirus. That's just for starters. Businesses would likely close, but if past actions are any indications, that would have to wait until our already-weakened national hospital system ran out of beds and hallways to treat coronavirus victims. Let's hope this doesn't happen, but you should be prepared if it does.

 

Only now are investors beginning to realize that a "cure," or at least a vaccine (despite the many statements of our officials outside of the medical community) is taking far longer than promised. It appears that even if there is a breakthrough tomorrow on this front, it would be far too late to save the country, or the economy, from a potential winter COVID-19 surge. 

 

Despite the difference of opinion between who is right, or wrong, what is fake news, and what isn't, there are two truths that investors should understand. Number one: COVID-19 could care less about what you think, whether you wear a mask or not, or who you are going to vote for. It will do what pandemics do, so adjust accordingly. In my opinion, the best advice so far has been given by the medical community. Listen to it.

 

Number two: the stock market calls it as it sees it. It can be wrong at times, but only for a short while. In the end, the market ignores the hype, but not the facts, leaving investors who ignore its directions holding the bag.   Right now, the U.S. markets are not giving us clear guidance, which reflects the uncertainty of this health crisis, lack of more stimulus, and the noise of the political elections, so look elsewhere.

 

Europe appears to be 4-6 weeks ahead of the U. S. in their battle with the coronavirus. Investors should therefore be following the events in Europe closely. If additional restrictions begin to pile up and/or the virus cases continue to rise, watch and compare what happens to Europe's main stock indexes as a prelude to what might happen in the U.S. in November.

 

The markets will continue to move up and down next week, as they have this week. As for the future, what I can promise you is that over the next 18 days, markets will become even more volatile than they have been month-to-date. After that, it depends on COVID-19.

 

By almost any economic measure, China has not only managed to avoid a recession this year, but will actually see its GDP grow by 1.6 percent in 2020. To put that growth in perspective, the world's economy is expected to decline by 4.4 percent this year.

 

The startling Chinese recovery in the face of ongoing pandemic problems throughout the rest of the world, can be credited with the government's tough lockdown procedures, population tracking abilities, as well as a rapid testing program among billions of citizens. At the same time, governmental fiscal and monetary policy went into action immediately. Major infrastructure projects were launched. In the consumer sector, cash in exchange for more spending programs encouraged consumers to spend more in a variety of areas from tourism to dining out.

 

In September, the manufacturing sector hit a six-month high. Small businesses, which are struggling to stay alive in most other countries, have expanded as well. The service sector is growing in tandem with other areas of the economy, according to the Caixin Insight survey, a media group that follows and forecasts the Chinese economy.

 

Most Americans had expected that, during the last four years, our trade balance with China would improve, and it did, thanks to tariffs and other restrictions. The problem is the U.S.  simply imported more from other countries instead (like Vietnam), and as a result, our overall trade deficit remained the same. China's trade imbalance with the U.S. is once again widening. The U.S. trade deficit with China surged in July to $63.6 billion. That is the highest level in 12 years, as imports jumped by a record amount. Politicians won't admit it, and you may not want to hear it, but we need what they make, and they make it better, faster, and are far more reliable than most.

 

By the end of this year, China will account for 17.5 percent of global GDP, a rise of 1.1 percent, which values the entire economy at about $14.6 trillion. The difference in nominal GDP is expected to lessen between China and the U.S. over the next three years, by how much may depend on our future response to the pandemic. This performance has not been lost on investors.

 

China's stock market has climbed to a record high of $10 trillion. That level blew past the country's previous market peak, which occurred during the stock market bubble of five years ago in China.

 

During that time, the stock market hit $10.05 trillion in June of 2015, just before governmental authorities decided to crack down on leveraged trading. The Chinese market subsequently halved in value.

 

This time around, however, stock investors are simply looking for growth, and worldwide that has been hard to come by. While equities are up about 17 percent (versus 9 percent for the S&P 500 Index), the buying has taken on a more measured approach. Valuations, while rich, are not reflecting unrealistic values like they did in 2015.Valuations for the CSI 300 trades at less than 19 times trailing, 12-month earnings, compared to 40 times the Index's 2015 peak. Institutional investors now own more than 70 percent of the free float of all Chinese stocks, while foreign investors hold about 5 percent, according to China Renaissance, a financial investment bank.

 

Recently, the country's currency has also been strengthening and foreign direct investment continues to grow. U.S. investment, for example, has risen by 6 percent in the first half of the year, according to China's Ministry of Commerce, despite all the anti-China rhetoric coming out of Washington.

 

There are risks investing in China, which is still considered an emerging market economy, despite its size. The authoritarian political system and centralized economy present downside risks in investing, as 2015 aptly illustrated. Still, investors might want to eye some equity exposure to this country, especially if the markets were to experience a pullback in the weeks ahead.