Senate races vex markets

Aquick look at the bond and stock markets shows that there are growing jitters as measured by the VIX, or volatility index.

The uneasiness can be tied to the election, but not the presidential one.

The Street figures Hillary Clinton will take the White House. The real concern is the Senate, and whether it will remain Republicancontrolled.

Wall Street loves a divided government — in fact, it thrives on one.

The VIX had a 5 percent jump last week after the Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report stated the Senate race is as tight as can be — at 47-47 with six “tossups” — so the economists and market strategists got nervous.

With the current makeup of the Senate at 54-46 favoring the Republicans, President Obama hasn’t been able to drive through any radical economic changes the past few years.

Recent history shows that an unchecked president — one who has a Senate and House controlled by his own party — is a recipe for disaster and economic dominance of Main Street.

Take, for example, what Obama said at Thursday afternoon’s stump speech about ObamaCare’s “growing pains.”

The destructive health-care act named for him has cost millions of hard-working Americans billions of dollars, and it has kept many out of the labor force, partially or entirely, because companies now hesitate to hire full-timers due to the high cost of benefits associated with those positions.

When it was sent to the thenDemocrat-controlled Congress, ObamaCare was pitched and sold by the president as a way to save the average American family $2,500 a year. As it turned out, nothing could have been farther from the truth.

The last thing Wall Street wants to see is a Democrat-controlled Senate with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders chairing the banking and budget committees.

That’s a very scary post-Halloween thought.