No. of Recommendations: 11
OK, right off the bat, this post will have a crap-ton of politics. It’s about the effects of the election on the market and my (and presumably other) portfolios. I put it here because “US Policy” is more for cafeteria food fights, and the Fool, bless their heart, doesn’t want any politics on the Macro board. (I understand why, I just find it unnecessarily restrictive. I will put a link on the Fool Macro to direct those interested to come browse over here; perhaps a couple of new faces will.)
OK, so the election is less than a week away. The pollsters are saying it’s too close to call, nd every encouraging sign for one candidate is contraindicated by another. But my analysis on one side is pretty simple: the economy is killing it right now, and if Kamala is elected I see little to change that in the short run or even medium term. You can never tell, of course; Russia gets crazy, China takes Taiwan, a major bank goes toes up, whatever, but overall, same same same.)
If Trump gets the nod I expect the market (overall) to get a pop. It did well during his last term, and with the flush of “fewer regulations” and all that on first blast I’d expect more.
That said, Musk is talking about “cutting 30% from the budget”. That’s a pipe dream, obviously, you can’t do that without cutting social security and Medicare and halving the military - none of which is likely to happen. I expect a lot of stürm und drang over it, lots of huzzahs and hosannas, and at the end Trump will decide not to rock the boat because he doesn’t care about the deficit, really. (Neither do Republicans, except when Democrats are in office.)
If, however, he does let Elon loose, then I would expect a violent reaction - in slow motion for the economy, faster for the markets. Even Musk says there would be pain for two years, and then it would be swell. Two years in politics is forever, so I doubt it would be allowed to continue that long.
Likewise with Trump’s often touted tariffs plan. Putting a national sales tax on everything imported (which face it, is most everything people buy) will kill the economy short term. Probably long term too, although I doubt that even with a compliant Congress it would pass. Then again, I’ve been wrong before. A lot, actually.
And let’s not get into what might happen with the Pharma sector if RFK is actually given any power over the medical community in this country. Do I think a lot of shifty stuff might get through? Yes. Do I think vaccines would get any priority? I do not. (Those are supposedly not a big money maker for the manufacturers; I don’t know enough about it to comment.)
I could go on, but you get the drift. Short term, probably not a lot of gigantic change with either candidate. Longer term, probably massive if Trump is elected. Then again, I remember “infrastructure week” as a running joke for nearly 4 years, so all the hyperbolic talk might come to nothing, we’d just have to endure the unendurable for 1400-some-odd days.
As for specific companies and industries, well I’d look to “news”, “late night talk shows”, Amazon, Google, and others to be in the center of the target, and Tesla to walk off with some sort of wonderful prize for the boy genius’ efforts. There are others, maybe they’ll come up later in the thread.
If you’d like to contribute to this thread, please do, just keep it somewhat civil and focus on the market and the economy rather than the outrage-of-the-day, an easy trap to fall into. I’ve done it myself, eh?
