The GE and the market: possible scenarios

HOW might the stock market react to the results of Friday's General Election? Would it fall if the Opposition won more seats? Or would a resounding victory for the governing party set off a rally?

Probably neither. The local market is typically not as dependent on domestic factors as it is on external developments and as things stand now, there are two big worries on the latter front - China's slowing economy-cum-crashing stock market, and the question of when US interest rates will rise.

Furthermore, past GEs have not had much impact on the market, so short of a huge upset which would then mean we'd have entered uncharted territory, there's no reason to expect this time to be different.

If the market does plunge any time over the next week, it's more likely to be because of volatility and weakness in China and the US than anything…