Early Monday morning, one of the world’s most profitable currency trades unraveled, done in by a twist in Mexican elections few saw coming. Twenty hours later, investors in India started frantically dumping stocks, triggering a one-day, $386 billion wipeout, when they realized they had badly miscalculated the scope of Narendra Modi’s election victory.
Around the world, surprise results in some of the biggest developing countries are illustrating how much markets have riding on the politics of 2024 — and the pitfalls of trusting opinion polls to predict the outcome.
From Mumbai to Mexico City, the Year of the Election — in which 40 countries are holding national votes — is already burning investors, providing an early warning as elections in the European Union and U.K. near, and five months ahead of the U.S. presidential contest. Often, forecasts are accurately predicting top-line results, such as Claudia Sheinbaum’s landslide win to become Mexico’s first female president, while failing to pick up on more nuanced outcomes, like how many seats Modi’s party would carry in parliament.