• Ford shares fall 6% in early trading after the carmaker cut its earnings forecast due to warranty costs and supply disruptions. Alphabet, Visa and AMD report after the market closes today. 
• Boeing raises about $21 billion in a share sale, one of the largest ever by a public company, as it seeks to stave off a potential credit rating downgrade to junk.
• HSBC plans $3 billion stock buyback after reporting better-than-estimated earnings.
• Bitcoin advances past $71,000 for the first time since June. Oil steadies from a 6% plunge. Stocks and bonds are mixed. 
• Money managers are taking cues from a once-jailed Chinese dissident to figure out how far President Xi Jinping will go to revive the economy.

A week before the US election, Wall Street is falling over itself trying to suss out what the next president means for markets. Investment playbooks are being dusted off, gaming out everything from a gridlocked Congress to the impact of tariffs on inflation, and more.

Here are some of the latest takes:

• While investors are worried about being left behind should stocks and bonds stage big moves after the vote, just as much danger exists in taking previous trading patterns too seriously. In one example, Deutsche Bank issued a warning Monday to those expecting another Donald Trump-fueled stock rally, saying the ex-president's current lead on internet-betting sites may prevent a repeat of the come-from-behind shock that catapulted assets in his first term.

• A loose consensus has formed among investors. A survey by market-research firm 22V looked at just the first week following the vote, and found investors expect large-capitalization stocks to win under every scenario except a Republican sweep, in which it sees small caps doing well. (A Bloomberg Markets Live Pulse survey found 38% of respondents see equities accelerating a year from now under Trump, versus 13% under Kamala Harris.)
   
• Whatever happens in the short term, the enduring equity rally is flashing good news for whoever takes the White House. Leuthold Group looked at previous episodes when the S&P 500 was showing similar momentum to the extreme readings it’s giving off today. It found that in 21 previous instances when the index was sitting on a gain of 30% or more over 12 months — it’s up more than 40% now — only twice did the economy falter in the next year.
  
  Moreover, economic growth following the market’s high-velocity periods tended to accelerate further. As Leuthold Chief Investment Officer Doug Ramsey put it: “A strong stock market has tended to inoculate the economy against a near-term decline.”
   
• One big caveat: Control of both the White House and Congress by either party is likely to revive inflation and trigger a hawkish reaction by the Federal Reserve, a scenario that doesn’t bode well for risky assets, says Rich Weiss, chief investment officer for multi-asset strategies at American Century Investment Management. “The only way it’s not going to be inflationary is if you get a one party in the White House and Congress is locked in the other,” he said. “That would actually be a blessing.” —Lu Wang

Ford’s underwhelming earnings are putting a spotlight on the company’s woeful stock performance relative to peers. GM and Tesla shares both jumped last week after surprisingly strong results.

VF, the owner of Vans and North Face brands, is soaring 22% in premarket trading, putting the stock on track for its biggest gain ever. The company reported quarterly revenue that beat Wall Street expectations. —Subrat Patnaik

Of all the hot spots in global finance that were upended by the pandemic, few remain as fragile as the commercial mortgage-backed securities market. And within this market, the pain is most acute in a new breed of bonds typically backed by one mortgage tied to one building.

A good example is 1407 Broadway in Manhattan, as Carmen Arroyo, Natalie Wong, Aaron Gordon and Christopher Cannon recount in today’s Big Take. In June, investors in AAA-rated debt backed by the building learned they wouldn’t getting the full interest payment they were owed.

A similar story is playing out in office buildings across the US, where the pandemic exposed just how risky it is to own a bond backed by a single building and its rental income, even those parts of the bond with the highest credit rating.

“The AAA rating is designed to be a debt security that would typically default less than once every 5,000 years,” said John Griffin, a chaired professor of finance at the University of Texas in Austin. “Yet, here we are not far from the financial crisis observing defaults.”

Corporate America is sending at least one bullish signal this earnings season, according to Bank of America.

The mention of a “bottom” in results through last week is up 56% from a year earlier, the bank says. History shows that an increase in such references tends to point to an improvement in earnings.

That’s welcome news for the bulls, especially after we flagged yesterday that companies are beating estimates at the lowest rate in almost two years.

• Musk wants $2 trillion cut from US budget. That would be tough
• Volkswagen workers brace for fallout from years of dereliction
• How American tax breaks brought a Chinese solar energy giant to Ohio
• India’s Doshi family are worth $5.2 billion after a renewable energy IPO
• Starbucks threatens to fire staff who don’t come back to the office

How will the US election impact your money? Bloomberg News experts will answer your questions in a live Q&A on Oct. 30 at 10:30am ET. Send questions to bloombergqa@bloomberg.net.

Please share your thoughts on how we’re doing and what we’re missing. Contact us at marketsdaily@bloomberg.net.

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