Four advisors and portfolio managers say they have not moved a thing ahead of November 3
Four Canadian advisors and portfolio managers are doing the same thing with client portfolios ahead of the November 3 US midterm elections, which is nothing.
Each told Wealth Professional by email that politics does not enter their allocation decisions, and none has repositioned for the result.
Kalshi traders gave Democrats a 91 percent chance of winning the House of Representatives and a 67 percent chance of winning the Senate as of October 28, and Polymarket put the two at 93 percent and 65 percent.
Bloomberg reported that Wall Street is bracing for stocks to fall if Democrats take both chambers.
The market has given advisors little reason to move.
Alpine Macro chief equity strategist Nick Giorgi told CNBC the S&P 500 has risen 11 percent in the nine months leading into this vote, against an average of 1.6 percent across the last 14 midterm cycles, and said any dip would create a buying opportunity.
An analysis by Wells Fargo, cited by Bloomberg, found the index has risen in the 12 months after every postwar midterm.
Why the midterm vote rarely moves stocks
The missing pullback, not the result, is what stands out to Shiraz Ahmed, founder and chief executive officer of Sartorial Wealth Inc. in Mississauga.
“Honestly, less than people think. Going back to 1950, the S&P 500 has been higher a year after every single midterm, and it hasn’t much mattered which party won. What’s unusual this year is we never got the typical midterm-year pullback. Markets have had months to get comfortable with a Democratic House, so I’d be surprised if the result itself moves things much.”
Josh Sheluk, chief investment officer at Verecan Capital Management Inc. in Halifax, put the figure at zero in his email to Wealth Professional.
“Many people will quote past statistics about what performs well under different political alignments, but our view is that these past stats are not predictive and, even if they were, are not reliable enough to drive investment decisions.”
James Learmonth, co-chief investment officer and portfolio manager at Harvest ETFs, supplied the sequence behind that pattern, telling Wealth Professional that S&P 500 price returns over the 60 years before midterms ended positive roughly 60 percent of the time over 12 months and about half the time over three and six months.
Returns after the vote, he said, were positive about 85 percent of the time over three months and positive in every six- and 12-month period.
“There’s no guarantee that the same will be the case this time, the market has a laundry list of risks to contend with post election, but historically markets have seemingly benefitted from greater clarity on the political front, despite the outcome of the election.”
What advisors tell clients who want to trade the result
Demand for a view is real even where advisors decline to act on one.
A UBS survey of investors holding at least US$1m, conducted between September 4 and 11, 2026, found 88 percent wanted to better understand what the midterms mean for their portfolios and 84 percent wanted more guidance than usual from their advisor during an election year, as Wealth Professional previously reported.
Philip Petursson, chief investment strategist at IG Wealth Management, said his firm is making modest adjustments but no election bet, and noted that November and December tend to see equity rallies once uncertainty lifts.
“Don’t overtrade it. Don’t overthink it. You can get the election right and the market wrong. That’s a pretty expensive way to discover that politics and stock prices aren’t the same thing.”
Ahmed redirects the conversation to year-end mechanics, pointing clients to tax-loss harvesting and unused contribution room rather than a pre-vote exit. Sheluk cites Donald Trump’s two surprise wins and the Brexit referendum, none of which produced sustained negative market outcomes.
Both have previously weighed in for Wealth Professional on whether to allocate away from US assets on valuation grounds.
Trade reviews, not the ballot, carry the Canadian risk
For Canadian clients, Ahmed said the binding variable is trade.
According to law firm analyses from McMillan and Cassels, the United States declined to renew the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) in its current form at the mandatory joint review last July.
That triggered Article 34.7(4) and moved the agreement into annual joint reviews through to its expiry on July 1, 2036.
“Every one of those reviews is a chance for things to get choppy for the TSX and the loonie,” Ahmed said. “And with the market going into the vote close to record highs, there’s not a lot of room for disappointment.”
What they are watching after November 3
Learmonth named inflationary pressure, the sustainability of artificial intelligence capital spending, and trade and geopolitical tension, while remaining bullish on equities on the strength of large-cap US earnings and a forward price-to-earnings ratio near its 10-year average.
Sheluk listed elevated equity and corporate bond valuations, earnings expectations, growth durability, and persistent inflation.
Petursson put earnings, inflation, and the direction of interest rates ahead of anything on the ballot, and said his tell will be whether the market rewards companies that beat and raise.
