Trump: Bark Worse Than the Bite?

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Unless you have been living in a cave this week, you are probably aware the country has elected a new president. Leading up to Election Day, the anxiety was palpable. A populist wave, much like the one experienced in the British Brexit vote earlier this year, resulted in economically disenfranchised voters coming out in full force to vote out the perceived establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton. Financial market pundits and media commentators predicted an immediate 11-13% decline in stock values if Donald Trump were to win. Could they have been more wrong? After a brief -5% decline in pre-trading Dow Jones Industrial Average future prices, the Dow subsequently skyrocketed more than 1,000 points higher to finish up +1.4% for the day (see chart below). For the week, the Dow amazingly rallied by +5.4%.

Source: Investing.com Source: Investing.com

As I have written on numerous occasions, politics have very little impact on the long-term direction of the financial markets. Yes, it is true that regulations and policies implemented by the president and Congress can influence specific industries or individual companies over the short-run. Hillary Clinton proved this assertion with her pharmaceutical industry tweet, which created a lasting hangover effect on the sector. But guess what? Regulations and politics have always changed throughout our country’s history, with various shifting policies impacting businesses asymmetrically – some positively and some negatively. The good news…in an ever-expanding global economy, accelerated through technology, capitalism forces businesses to adapt to political change.

Considering the amount of our nation’s political variation, what has been our country’s stock market and economic track record over the last 100 years under 17 different presidents (8 Democrats and 9 Republicans)? See chart below:

Source: Macrotrends Source: Macrotrends
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Not too shabby judging by the roughly 188x–fold increase in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (or > ~18,700%+ return) to a fresh all-time record high this week. While I am admittedly nervous about a full, Republican tri-power Trump administration (President/House/Senate), the reality is that Trump’s unconventional, unprecedented platform doesn’t fit squarely into the traditional Republican policy boxes. In fact, he has switched his party affiliation five times. President-elect Trump will therefore need to reach across the political aisle to Democrats, and work with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to accomplish the platform agenda priorities he outlined during his presidential campaign.

While all this political election discussion has been stimulating and exhausting, fortunately, followers of my Investing Caffeine  blog understand there are much more important factors than politics affecting the performance of the stock market and economy – namely corporate profits, interest rates, valuations, and sentiment (see Don’t Be a Fool, Follow the Stool).

As mentioned, the market’s returns are influenced by four key factors, but sentiment and stock market values are largely shaped by investor behavior. Trump has less control on investor behavior, but his policies can directly impact corporate profits and interest rates – two critical components of economic health. Part of the reason Trump won the election was due to campaign promises regarding many popular stimulative policies, including personal and corporate tax cuts; infrastructure spending; repatriation of foreign money; tax simplification and reform; Obamacare improvement; and immigration reform.

As it turns out, a good number of the issues relating to these policies happen to be bipartisan in nature. Given the Republican-controlled Congress, investors are perceiving these potential policy changes as positive for the market – at least for the first week of his presidential tenure.

For now, President-elect Trump has struck the proper conciliatory tone and made appropriate comments. In the coming days and weeks, investors are watching closely for tangible evidence and clues of his policy priorities, as he fills key political posts on his presidential team. Time will tell whether the early honeymoon will continue past Trump’s inauguration day, but currently, the consensus is his bark heard during Trump’s heated 18-month presidential campaign is worse than the actual bite of his election victory.

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