Vol Man is flying a balloon over the term in question.  I had to reach back into my memory to find a time that was even close to this madness.  Politics normally does not matter in trading but it can rear its ugly head every once in a while.

Bush V Gore 2000 is  a good example.  That event is good indicator of what will happen in the future.  Patterns repeat.

What was the floor trade like just after the election in 2000?

Massive Paralysis in the Market in 2000 post election

What I mostly remember in the story of the hanging chad and all of the other election silliness was while the Supreme Court battle raged and Florida was trying to certify the election, trade pretty much froze.  It is a market symptom I call Volatility Fatigue where traders just don’t want to trade, especially market makers.  For me, I traded nothing mid-market.  Remember electronic trading was in its infancy back then so a broker came to the crowd to quote something it was pay up or piss off.

I think we saw a little of that this week with jury deliberations.  The big surprise was that the market was not surprised.  Traders are good at pricing known outcomes with millions of individual decision makers.  The sum total of that opinion is the VIX.  The VIX was not traded in 2000 but implied volatility certainly was.  I kept IV juicy and bid and no one was actively selling it.  It was a 1 – 2 punch since the Dot Com bubble was bursting and whoever the next President was walked right into a sure recession.  Once SCOTUS certified the election, stocks recovered and the market functioned normally.

Depending on how things go in court, July is like the next dust up when DJT gets sentenced.  Also remember, Nov 2000 was close to multi year low so being able to buy when things get ugly will be most important.