How markets are responding to the prospect of another Trump presidency
In the early morning hours of Wednesday, the news broke: Former President Donald Trump secured enough electoral college votes to win the presidency.
Whether that alleviates or heightens anxiety for you, it does mean that a great amount of uncertainty has been eliminated. There will be no protracted legal battles over the results for the rest of the year. And that certainty is something that markets are responding to.
On this day after the election, “Marketplace Morning Report” host David Brancaccio spoke with two economists to get their take on how markets are responding to the election news. First, we’re joined by Ben Kumar, head of equity strategy at Seven Investment Management. You can listen to the interview by clicking the audio player below.
David Brancaccio: The shorthand for this is called “the Trump trade.” Take me through the logic of some of this, starting with stocks. What general categories are they buying here and what’s the strategy?
Ben Kumar: U.S. stocks is basically the strategy. I mean, the Dow and the Nasdaq and the S&P 500. One of the other interesting ones to look at is the Russell 2000, which are smaller U.S. companies, and that, when I last checked, was up 5% to 6%. You know, there is a real feeling that it means domestic U.S. strength is back on the cards, which aligns at least with some of the things Donald Trump has been saying. And it seems that markets are prepared at least, today, to believe it.
Brancaccio: Now, some of these U.S.-based companies are, of course, multinational corporations, and some will argue that the tariffs the next president is promising will add friction to the economy, contribute to inflation, clog the arteries of world trade. That would presumably hurt profits in some of these companies that people are buying this morning.
Kumar: Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right. There’s a version of Tesla shares that’s traded in Frankfurt in Germany that’s up 15 or 16%. But you know, if tariffs start going in and Chinese retaliation comes through, Tesla’s not guaranteed to keep doing better. So you’re absolutely right. But I think this morning, you know, what we’re seeing, before any of the detail comes out, is just a general wave of optimism and actually, I think, a wave of relief that this isn’t going to drag on for another month or two months. We are done now and can start looking to the future and see what’s next for a U.S. economy that feels, you know — if you listen to Donald Trump — like it’s ready to get growing again.
Brancaccio: Yeah, there’s this VIX index we have here out of Chicago, the so-called fear index of stock market volatility — way down this morning, bolstering your point there. Now, the bond market — down sharply, pushing the 10-year interest rate up sharply this morning. What’s the logic there?
Kumar: Well, I mean, some of the stuff that has been said, if you look at the actual manifestos and things is there will be more borrowing under a Trump presidency than there would under a Kamala Harris presidency, to the tune of nearly $4 trillion more. But if you’re going to borrow, and doing that manages to get growth going. Actually, that’s not too bad a shape of things. However, that growth will be 234, years in the future. So as of today, bond markets a little bit more sensible. They’re just going they’re going to be borrowing more, so we probably want to charge them a little bit.
Next, let’s bring in economist Julia Coronado, founder of MacroPolicy Perspectives and a professor at the University of Texas-Austin, for her take. Listen to her interview by clicking the audio player below.
David Brancaccio: They call it “the Trump trade,” but make sure we understand this.
Julia Coronado: Yeah, so the Trump trade is there’s going to be tax cuts, there’s going to be tariffs, and it’s going to expand the deficit. And what that means is a higher dollar, higher inflation and therefore higher interest rates. But [it’s] good for stocks.
Brancaccio: All right, so greater deficit — I thought this talk of cutting $2 trillion out of the federal budget with billionaire Elon Musk and hedge funder John Paulson might help with that?
Coronado: Yeah, that’s not what the Committee for the Responsible Budget estimates. They estimated that Trump’s proposals could add $7.5 trillion to $8 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years. And it’s always easier to give sugar rather than spice, so cutting taxes is the highest priority, and the market is betting that’s what’s going to happen, especially given the strength of the win.
Brancaccio: Indeed. Now, look at the rush into stocks. I mean, I would have expected people to be buying fossil fuel companies this morning, but it’s much more broad-based.
Coronado: Yeah, Trump’s coming in on a very good economy and a U.S. outperformance. So the presumption is that if you then add tax cuts on top of that, that will be good for growth in a broad-based way. Of course, tariffs could hurt growth. So this is the immediate reaction — how that all plays out over time remains to be seen.
Brancaccio: And as we look, to go back to your previous point, at the higher interest rates this morning, that makes the U.S. dollar more attractive. You’re seeing all this play out in currency markets today.
Coronado: Absolutely. These moves are huge, so big jumps in longer-term interest rates, just as we were hoping they were about to come down and a much stronger dollar against most currencies.
Brancaccio: So the Federal Reserve that starts to meet today and has a verdict on interest rates tomorrow is going to be tugging in the opposite direction.
Coronado: That’s right. The Fed has been trying to lower rates to give the economy a break and to stimulate the housing sector and other interest-sensitive sectors, but it doesn’t control longer-term interest rates. So they’ll probably go forward with a 25 basis point rate cut, but that’s not going to flow through into lower mortgage rates or borrowing rates, because the longer-term interest rates are being driven off those expectations for higher inflation and higher deficits.