LONDON (MarketWatch) — It is, as they say, never over until it is over. Even so, with two weeks to go before one of the strangest American election campaign in living memory comes to an end, it looks as if there can now only be one outcome on Nov. 8 — and that is a victory for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. For the first time in its history, the U.S. will be led by a female president.

In the short term, at least, Clinton’s inevitable victory is going to boost global stocks.

Why? Because there will be widespread relief that Melania Trump isn’t measuring for new curtains at the White House; because there will continuity with economic policies that the rest of the world is broadly happy with; because the Federal Reserve is likely to keep normalizing interest rates; and because it will signal that, post-Brexit, there is no global movement against free trade.

In the longer term, Clinton may not do much for growth — she has a weakness for the kind of fiddly tax changes that have proved a dismal failure in Europe. But in the immediate wake of her victory, stocks are likely to surge.

Trump’s Electoral Math Veers Far From Latest Polling

Later in November, Donald Trump will have plenty of time to reflect on where his campaign went so badly wrong. He had some powerful themes — rallying ordinary people against the elite is working in most places right now. And he was up against an exceptionally tarnished opponent, who lacked the charisma or charm to skewer her opponent — a half-way decent debater would have demolished Trump in the debates with a witty one-liner.

And yet despite that his campaign has imploded. There have been too many allegations of harassment from different women for them all to be dismissed. And while most modern democracies might accept a philander as president or prime minister, it is Trump’s obnoxiousness that surely renders him unfit for office in the eyes of most people.

Going into the final fortnight, Clinton now has a commanding lead in the polls. According to an ABC tracking poll, she is now ahead by 50% to 38%. State polls don’t look any more encouraging for the Republican candidate, and with much of his party abandoning him, he has few resources to call on. Professional political operators don’t squander leads like that — and Clinton is certainly professional.

If Clinton does emerge victorious next month, that will boost global stocks. Here’s why.

First, sheer relief. Across the rest of the world, Trump is regarded as completely unfit for public office. Whether rightly or wrongly, the president of the United States is meant to be a person of global stature. Someone who can provide leadership, and work out what to do in a crisis. Even his staunchest defenders would struggle to argue Trump is that person.

If he fails to make it into the White House, that is surely worth a couple of percentage points on the FTSE UKX, +2.07% or the DAX DAX, +1.36% — for the simple reason there will be one less thing to worry about.

Secondly, Clinton represents continuity. She will have her own distinct policies from Barack Obama. But she served in his administration, and she is also a Democrat. There will be no abrupt change. The American economy has been far from perfect over the last eight years, but looked at from the rest of the world it has been doing OK — and better than most other major economies. The stock market likes stability — and stability on a path of modest growth is something it likes even more.

Thirdly, the Fed is likely to keep normalizing rates. The fact that we still have emergency interest rates across the world eight years after a financial crash — and Europe is still printing vast quantities of money — is a reminder than the global economy has still not fully recovered from 2008. But the Fed has already tweaked rates upwards once, and is likely to do so again before the end of the year — so long as Clinton gets elected.

Under Trump, no one knows what would happen to rates — or indeed even to the Fed, given the attacks he has made on its chairwoman. The best thing that could happen to the global markets over the next couple of years is to make a smooth transition back to normal levels of interest rates — and that is a lot more likely to happen under Clinton.

Finally, open trade will be back on track. Across the world, Britain’s decision to leave the European Union was seen as protest against globalization and free trade — and possibly a sign that both were about to go into retreat. There was never quite the whole story — the British were, just as plausibly, voting against a layer of government that was neither very democratic nor adding much to their lives.

Were Trump to be elected soon afterwards, however, on a protectionist platform, it would confirm that trend — and send the stock markets scuttling backwards. A Clinton victory, by contrast, would make Brexit look more like a one off — and investors could reassure themselves that free trade is here to stay.

Whether Clinton would be good for global economy in the longer term is a separate matter. Insofar as she has laid out her economic policies, there is nothing much to suggest she has any real idea how to lift either American or global growth — and she has a taste for the kind of fiddly tax changes that have done so much to damage economics in Europe.

That said, she would be a safe and steady hand on the tiller. If, as now seems inevitable, the market wakes up on Nov. 9 to four years of President Hillary Clinton, expect stocks around the world to surge on the news.