There were two big items of news to hit the headlines this morning. The first—that President Trump has tested positive for the novel coronavirus—generated the most interest and the most fear. It has been credited with knocking down markets. The second—that job growth continues to slow—has generated much less attention but will have much more impact over time. This reaction is a classic example of what makes the headlines versus what really matters. So, let’s take a closer look.

I am running this post a day earlier than usual, as we will post the beginning-of-the-month fare tomorrow (e.g., Market Thoughts video). Next week, we will go back to a Thursday update.

One of the big unexamined assumptions of many of the questions I have been getting recently is that politics matters to economics. I get questions from both sides—how bad will it be if candidate X wins? They all assume that candidate X, whoever it is, has the ability to significantly affect the economy and the markets. But is that really the case?

In a client event this week, I got an interesting question: “How do you stay calm? With everything that is going on, with all of the problems and risks that you have to evaluate, every day, how do you manage to stay calm?” I thought it was a very good question.

Over the past week, the news on the medical front has been mixed. The pandemic remains under control, and the case growth rate remains low. But case growth has started to slowly increase again, as post-Labor Day infections begin to register and as schools and universities reopen.

Recently, I have been getting a number of questions from people who are scared about what might happen to the financial markets at election time. The fear is that if we get a disputed election, it could lead to disruption and possibly even violence. If so, we could well see markets take a significant hit.

As we have seen, markets have continued to decline throughout September. Despite some attempts to rally, we are now well below the peak at the start of the month. How worried should we be?

The past week has seen the case growth rate remain low. But there are signs that the case count may be rising, as post-Labor Day infections start to register and as schools and universities reopen. While the pandemic remains under control, the steady improvement in both the case growth rate and case growth itself has paused and may be starting to falter. While the control measures are still working, conditions are changing.

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about how no one seems to be worrying about the federal deficit, I was having a conversation with a reporter this morning and found myself expanding on other things the market seems to have forgotten about. Yes, we have the pandemic and the U.S. recovery on the radar, but not the deficit. And once you start thinking about it, there are other issues out there that were rattling markets only last year. What about the pending hard Brexit, for example? What about the U.S.-China trade conflict and deals? What about the continued weakness of the energy sector? What about the rising pandemic costs in emerging markets? What about the growing conflict between Greece and Turkey (two NATO countries) in the eastern Mediterranean? And so on, and so on.

Recently, the number of questions I’ve been getting has been greater than usual. People are getting scared. It is not just about the pandemic, as that seems to be and is, at the moment, moving under control. Rather, people are worried about the election (and what that means for their portfolios), about the value of the dollar (and what that means for their portfolios), and about inflation (and what that means for their portfolios). The first concern comes up every four years, and the second and third are perennials, which appear whenever things look a bit dicey. No surprises here. But what is surprising is what’s missing: the questions about the federal deficit. This kind of uncertainty typically generates questions about what the deficit, and the debt, mean. Not this time.