Welcome to our exchanges at Goldman Sachs Markets Update for Friday, October 16th.

Each week we check them with the leader across the firm to get a quick take on what they're

watching in markets. I'm Jake

Stewart Global Head of Corporate Communications here at the firm. And joining us

today we have one of our favorites Tony Pasquarello on from our

Global Markets Division. Tony welcome back to the program.

Thanks, Jake, good to be with you.

So stocks have been trending up recently.

What's driving that and how optimistic are investors

today on Friday, October 16th.

So really it's a bit of a mixed bag right now, Jake.

Following a spectacular rally last week,

we were actually off to a very strong start to this week.

In fact, the NASDAQ 100, which will come back to came within about 2% of

its all-time high that it set back during a very strong rally in the month of August.

I think the strength that we saw on the market which essentially culminated on Monday into Tuesday morning

it was driven by a few factors. I'd argue the most important driver was on the margin. Some relaxation by investors

around the notion of a contested US election.

As recently as three weeks ago, there was a narrative in the markets that was increasingly possible, if not probable,

that the outcome of the race would not be known on election night itself.

In fact, the vote count could spill into late November, even December,

perhaps culminating in a Supreme Court decision, which we saw certainly back in 2000.

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