This past weekend, I took my four-year-old twin grandsons to a physical shopping mall to buy winter parkas. I was stunned by what I found. The mall resembled a post-apocalyptic landscape, with almost no shoppers and several store windows boarded up with plywood. Not finding what I wanted, I simply ordered the coats online.

Anecdotal experience can help you truly understand abstract statistics. My recent shopping trip drove home the fact that most shopping malls are doomed and their workforces are permanently out of work. The same can be said for other old-line industries that have seen their inevitable demise hastened by the coronavirus pandemic.

Investors need to position their portfolios for the emergent future. Below, I get you started by unveiling an “election trade” that’s poised to pay off with big profits, no matter which party captures the White House on November 3.

Labor market disruption…

Long-term unemployment defined the Great Recession. It’s already defining the coronavirus recession. Whoever wins the presidency in November has their work cut out for them. In the meantime, during this contentious election season, brace yourself for market volatility and perhaps another stock market swoon.

On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 152.84 points (+0.54%), the S&P 500 climbed 17.93 points (+0.52%), and the tech-heavy NASDAQ gained 21.31 points (+0.19%), as investors once again got their hopes up about fiscal stimulus. In pre-market futures trading Friday, stocks were set to open modestly higher.

The U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday that first-time claims for unemployment benefits totaled 787,000 last week, the lowest since March 14. The consensus expectation had called for 875,000 claims for the week ended October 17. That said, unemployment seems to have plateaued at a high level (see chart).

Statistical anomalies must be kept in mind. One factor behind the drop in jobless claims has been the transition of workers who have exhausted their regular benefits and moved to the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) emergency compensation program.

The PUA total grew by 509,828 to 3.3 million for the week ended October 3. Recipients under that part of the program get an extra 13 weeks of compensation after having exhausted the initial 26 weeks of eligibility. Thursday’s report also is difficult to parse because California started supplying data again after a two-week hiatus to solve reporting glitches.

Giving up for good…

A disturbing trend is the increasing number of people who are dropping out of the labor force. In addition, many workers are getting rehired at a fraction of their previous pay.

The official unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was 7.9% as of September, which equates to about 12.6 million people. Millions of Americans face eviction from their homes and can’t put food on their tables.

Many of the old jobs are gone for good. The “basic” industries, as we’ve known them, will never be basic again. It’s naive to think that all of those laid-off workers in such sectors as auto, manufacturing, retail, and apparel will magically find employment in information technology, telecommunications, or biotech. Blind faith in a “rocket-ship” economic recovery in 2021 presupposes that workers are interchangeable.

Read This Story: The Pandemic Meltdown: Could It Happen Again?

The pervasiveness of the digital economy benefits Big Tech and certain strata of society, but the growth of technology isn’t enough to sop up the massive unemployment within sectors that have undergone accelerated obsolescence during the pandemic.

We’re witnessing creative destruction, with the emergence of a two-tier economy. The winners include technology, health services, e-commerce, and renewable energy. Meanwhile some sectors, notably hospitality, travel, fossil fuels, and bricks-and-mortar retailing, are taking it on the chin. It will take many months for the worst hit industries to recover, even after the virus is contained. Many companies will go bankrupt and disappear forever.

The economic transformation goes deeper than you probably imagined. For example, it’s common knowledge that robots are replacing low-wage assembly line workers. But thanks to artificial intelligence, robots are also becoming our bosses. Well-paid human managers in factories, warehouses, call centers, and other operations are getting the boot in favor of intelligent machines.

The trick for investors, of course, is to migrate away from the losers in the new economy and toward the winners. Problem is, many of the obvious winners are currently overbought, with too many neophyte investors chasing household names. Pricey stocks are vulnerable to a tumble, especially with a fraught election about to occur in two weeks.

How to profit from chaos…

If we’ve learned anything during the Trump era, it’s this: anything can happen. Investors are jittery and rightfully so. The November election is looming on the calendar and we might not know the winner of the presidential contest for weeks, maybe months.

The partisan divide in America is so deep, the mainstream media are running headlines that warn of civil war. A disputed election could trigger a steep market decline.

But my colleague Jim Fink isn’t worried. In his capacity as chief investment strategist of Jim Fink’s Inner Circle, Jim has come up with a trade that’s positioned to reap a windfall, no matter what happens on November 3. Make this one trade before election night, and you’re 95.96% likely to win. Get the details by clicking here.

John Persinos is the editorial director of Investing Daily. Send your questions or comments to mailbag@investingdaily.com. To subscribe to John’s video channel, follow this link.