Strategist's Advice: Don't Play Politics With Your Portfolio

The U.S. stock market’s melt-up seems to have ended in spectacular fashion this week, and now many on Wall Street are turning their attention to the election in November as a potential source of risk.

The “What Goes Up” podcast talked to Nela Richardson, senior investment strategist at Edward Jones, to get her take on this week’s market action and what to expect in November.

Some highlights of the conversation:

“We’ve had one very consistent message about elections and election years, even elections in 2020. Don't play politics with your portfolio. I'm going to grant a number of things. I'm going to grant that we've seen an unprecedented surprise this year in terms of the pandemic," she said.

"I'm also going to grant that this is a very divisive election where, exacerbated by the pandemic, you're seeing social upheaval, you're seeing racial injustice is being protested in the streets, you're seeing higher-than-ever before jobless numbers, GDP declining by the most since the Great Depression. So there's a lot going into a vote in November this time around," she said.

"But if you look historically, it really doesn't matter over the long term who controls Congress, who controls the White House… So any reaction we see -- and I do think we'll see a reaction to the November election -- but it's likely to be short-lived. It's likely to be a knee-jerk reaction to what's going on. And it's likely to wash out over the longer term.”