Georgia’s Election

Good afternoon and happy 2021 everyone – I hope you all got the year started on the right foot!

Tomorrow is the Georgia Senate runoff race that will really decide the potential of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ first term. The reason for the runoff from Novembers election is that neither party’s candidate received 50% of the votes – so there will be another vote to determine who takes the two open seats. The reason that this race is so important is because it effectively determines the Senate’s majority party. The Senate has been controlled by the Republican party since 2014 which was beneficial to President Trump as he had a likeminded majority passing laws and bills. However, a republican Senate would be a hinderance for passing any laws or bills that President Elect Biden has promised during his campaign. Currently the Senate is made up of 46 Democrats, 50 Republicans and 2 Independents. However, the 2 Independents historically vote with the Democrats. If the 2 open seats are picked up by the Democratic party, the Senate will be split 50/50 and the tie breaking vote will be from Kamala Harris. If the Republican party is able to clench a majority, we will likely see extended stalemates through Biden and Harris’ first term.

Mortgage backed securities have climbed for the last couple of days reaching the highs that we saw at the end of November. Because of the expected turbulence from tomorrow’s election and the massive amount of room on the downside, we are holding a strong locking bias.