James Athey, a money manager at Aberdeen Standard Investments, was one of the few betting against market predictions of a comfortable U.S. election win for Joe Biden and a likely Democrat sweep of the Senate.

Now, as votes are being counted and with the outcome looking like a protracted affair, Athey is doubling down on buying safer assets. He is keeping overweight holdings in U.S. Treasuries and has boosted a long position in the Japanese yen, betting the uncertainty won’t be resolved soon. The main risk for markets is that Biden wins presidency while Republicans hold onto the senate, creating a policy deadlock, he said.

“A Biden win is probably worse for risk assets than a Trump win,” he said in emailed comments. “We are not going to get presidential clarity for a good while yet. That will keep risk nervous.”

Athey didn’t buy into the market narrative of recent weeks that Trump’s chances of winning were little more than 10 per cent, and weighted his portfolio accordingly. While other investors were bracing for a selloff in Treasuries on the prospect of more fiscal stimulus following a Biden win, Athey went the other way and bought the securities in the seven- to 10-year segment of the yield curve.

U.S. 10-year bonds surged Wednesday, with yields falling 10 basis points to 0.79 per cent. Athey said that he added to his long position on Australian bonds Wednesday. The dollar rose 0.5 per cent to 104.95 yen.