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Trump’s trade enthusiasm will likely fade quickly
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Trump’s trade enthusiasm will likely fade quickly

A version of this story appeared in CNN Business’ Nightcap newsletter. Sign up for free to get it in your inbox, Here.


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On Wednesday morning, my inbox was flooded with notes from analysts wanting to talk about the upside of the election for various industries. Financial stocks like banks and credit card companies are poised to thrive. The same goes for private prisons and the companies that are eventually expected to help carry out mass deportations. The crypto world came out particularly strong and applauded the candidate’s success. He promised them the moon.

The enthusiasm for these so-called Trump trades when the stock market opened in New York went into hyperdrive. Three major indices rose; This is a sign that investors are relieved by a quick victory. The Dow had one of its best days ever. Bitcoin rose to a new record above $75,000.

It is possible to read the market’s reaction as a kind of approval of the president-elect. authoritarian recommendations. (And yes, it feels like classic Wall Street tone deafness to see some people peddling the upside of a campaign.) Threats of violence against political opponents and journalists.)

But overall, traders are doing what traders do: uncovering potential profits that they can cash out in the coming days and weeks.

When you step back from the confusion, many of those same investors will tell you that the long-term outlook for the stock market is murky at best.

“People don’t like to miss opportunities to make a profit, so they rush in and grab some things they can unload quickly enough before it’s all over,” Daniel Alpert, managing partner at Westwood Capital, told me. “There’s still significant volatility in this market… And I think we’re still going to see a significant reversal in these transactions as the news starts to emerge.”

Markets tend to prefer a stable, largely predictable macro environment. If you ask Wall Street, the more gridlock in Washington the better. Because nothing disrupts a portfolio more than a sudden move that can create ripple effects in the market (say, a spike in inflation, a rise in unemployment, or a new policy edict published in a Truth post).

Part of that increase is due to big money managers aggressively taking money off the table in the weeks before the election, Alpert and others noted. Wednesday morning brought an unexpectedly clear result.

“We were going to have a positive reaction regardless of who won today,” Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B Riley Wealth Management, told my colleague Matt Egan on Wednesday. “There is clarity… The market is breathing a big sigh of relief on this.”

If Trump follows through on his campaign promises, you can expect a bigger deficit, rising inflation, and deportations of workers; Not only would this be cruel and immoral, it would also lead to a severe decline in economic growth.

“All of this doesn’t set a good example for the future,” Hogan says. “But the future is not now.”

In other words, lock in those profits whenever you can. Because when the reality of Trump’s economic plans is revealed, everything will change once again. And by all accounts, the changes he proposes would put the world’s largest economy into uncharted territory, which would almost certainly drive inflation even higher.

Chief among these proposals are blanket tariffs on imports that would force U.S. companies to pay more for critical materials and increase costs for consumers. Nearly all mainstream economists oppose tariffs of this scale and expect them to cause inflation to rise again.

“My worst-case scenario is that he actually succeeds with his blanket tariff policies,” Alpert told me. “If the House goes to Republicans, there will be absolutely no limits to the tariff policy Trump can enact…and to the extent he does so, he will create the worst of both worlds with higher domestic prices for goods and some services. and there is no overall improvement in the employment picture.”