WP Asks: What do the midterms actually mean for stocks, and for Canadian clients?
“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.
