‘I’m sad for my country, but not my portfolio’, commented one US fund manager and political pundit. And that, to a greater or lesser extent depending on your position in the US food chain, is how a majority of Americans voted. The greater or lesser extent being whether you believed he might get you a pay rise or a job, or rocket the price of your Tesla shares still higher to increase your billionaire-dom. Whether the big jump in US stockmarkets was based on the idea that President Elect (as it seems we have to call him, listen to any news bulletin) will be good for business or, my theory, relief that, for now, civil war has been averted. Well, who knows, but markets generally hate uncertainty, and, one way or another, we have certainty, at least about who will be president. What’s good for shares was not so good for bonds, loans to the US government, where it’s been assumed that interest rates may have to go up again; even though he’s promised to ‘end inflation’. In the words of cover of ‘The Economist’: ‘What could possibly go wrong?’
“Trade war: Stock markets rally as Trump rows back on Fed and China threats”
Yet another reminder, should one be needed, of how quickly things can and will change. A nod and a wink in the right direction from himself and/ or an underling can provide the solace the money men crave and turn a plummet into, if not a soar at this stage, then certainly a bounce.
