It's debate night as President Biden and former President Trump — the presumed nominees of their respective parties ahead of the national conventions — will face off tonight. What subjects will they tackle on the debate stage and which of their policies could spark movement in the markets (^DJI, ^IXIC, ^GSPC)?

Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman talks about whether this initial debate will be as market-moving as other economic data, and what investors and consumers should be listening for from each candidate.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Catalysts.

This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

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Video Transcript

Tonight is the first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle.

How much can we expect or what can we expect?

And how will each candidate's policies impact the market and potentially the broader economy?

We have our very own Rick Newman here with us.

So, Rick, what can we expect tonight?

Well, we're all going to see we're going to see who has some stamina and can get to the end after 90 minutes.

I mean, this is obviously I think that's one thing everybody is looking for, But, uh, you know, is this going to affect markets?

Um, it's possible there's something that could affect markets.

Uh, a little bit for a short term.

City has some research out on this.

They are getting a lot of questions from their clients.

They say, When do we need to start paying attention to the election?

When is it going to become a market moving thing?

And the answer is probably not.

Yet, even if this debate turns out to be kind of interesting, Um, what is most likely to happen is markets are going to start paying attention to the intricacies of this debate in the fall September October.

Until then, uh, we have a lot of other things that are going to move markets.

We got a whole earnings season to get through.

Uh, we got several more readings on inflation.

On employment.

We have a Fed meeting in July and another in September.

So those are the things that market is going to be paying attention to, but I think investors are definitely starting to keep an eye on this and see which way does this seem to be heading?

What about consumers who are just concerned about the state of the economy right now?

What should their kind of guide for watching the debate look like heading in to tonight?

Uh, that's that's such an interesting question, because, uh, consumers think the economy is a lot worse than it is.

Um so I, I think, uh, what ordinary people should be listening for.

I mean, I My expectation is there will be a lot of arguing about who is responsible before the inflation that we've had during the Biden administration.

If Trump is debating the way he should be debating, he's going to be blaming all of this inflation on Biden and Biden's policies that's not really correct.

I mean, supply chain distortions probably accounted for most of the inflation we saw, uh, so but I mean I. I don't know that consumers should care that much about what happened in the past.

I mean, if you if you're following the election, I think you care about what is going to happen during the next four years, Um, and you need to be listening for What are they going to do?

What are they going to do in the next presidential term?

You know, for what it's worth, Um, Biden as we know he's kind of he's kind of promising more of the same.

He ha.

He wants to raise taxes on corporations, but he couldn't do that the first time around.

So there may not be that many new changes.

If Biden gets another term.

Trump has a very different sort of agenda.

He wants tariffs on all imports, which will raise costs.

So Trump may not, let's say Trump wins he may not be able to do.

He may actually choose not to do everything he says he's going to do while campaigning.

That's kind of how it went the first time around.

But if you raise tariffs, you're raising the cost of imports, and that pushes prices up.

And there has already been a fair amount of economic research that says if the trump tariffs on Chinese imports and all other imports we into effect as expected, it would cost the ordinary household between one and $2000.

So when you hear tariffs, it might sound like a good idea to protect the US economy.

But tariffs means higher prices.

And Rick real quick.

I'm curious the timing of this happening earlier than usual.

Any sense as to why, that is, or maybe what this then signals about what the next several months are going to look like.

The Biden administration wanted it to be.

Earlier, they asked for it to be earlier, I think, because they said that with Biden tied in the polls, with Trump at best and behind by many measures, they could use this as a chance to reset the election.

But the good news is we're going to have we have no debate scheduled over the summer.

Go on vacation, go golfing, do whatever you want to do, go to the pool.

Don't worry about missing anything we're going to have.

We have another one scheduled for September and you know, that's when that's when markets voters.

That's when everybody is really going to be paying attention.

So if you can't watch tonight's shame on you, but you're going to get another chance.