reports an AP headline. But wait: Even if Obama’s election would be worse for the economy (or even just the stock market) than McCain’s — something that I do believe — surely the Obama victory can’t have been much of a surprise to investors. Presumably they incorporated this likelihood into the value they were already putting on stocks, and while I suppose there is a difference between 100% knowledge and 80-90% prediction, would it really be that much of a difference?
All of which, it seems to me, leads me to ask: How does the AP, or its sources, actually know that the stocks fell because of “post-election nerves … as investors began questioning what impact a Barack Obama presidency will have on business and the overall economy”?