by WorldTribune Staff, November 7, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
As swing state after swing state went Red on Tuesday into early Wednesday, investors were seeing green.
When it was all said and done, Kamala Harris, the candidate Democrats anointed to destroy Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, had lost the seven swing states of Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, and Arizona.
Trump won 312 Electoral College votes, the most for any Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988.
Matt Vespa wrote for TownHall.com on Thursday: “In the end, she got swept. When are Democrats going to realize that she was a horrific candidate? Not only did she not win a single swing state, but she couldn’t even win in reliably Democratic bastions—Trump won Dearborn, Michigan. Embarrassing the Left, but what a night for Republicans, Trump, and normal Americans. We defeated the hordes of Mordor and Tampon Tim’s weirdo brigades.”
Following Trump’s decisive victory, U.S. stocks’ capitalization rose by $1.62 trillion on Wednesday, their fifth-best one-day showing ever.
“The surge highlights the opportunity that investors, bankers and others in finance are hoping to embrace over four years of tax cuts, deregulation and economic expansion,” the Wall Street Journal noted.
“Investors are celebrating,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Cresset Capital in Chicago. He was among those buying shares of smaller companies, on the bet that Trump’s policies will jump start the economy.
Urgent: Support Free Press Foundation
The Journal’s Nov. 6 analysis added: The enthusiasm is especially heated in a few areas, investors and bankers said. Banks and other financial companies climbed, with the KBW Bank Index rising 11%. Investors expect regulatory scrutiny will ease in a Trump administration.
“Some also expect more dealmaking, potentially among smaller and midsize banks. The expected departure of Lina Khan, who leads the Federal Trade Commission and has been a thorn in the side of executives hoping to work out tech acquisitions, was cheered by investors and bankers.”
Activist investor Carl Icahn said in an interview late Tuesday: “A lot of these mergers have been thwarted by the current administration. That’s going to change.”
The rally in shares of smaller companies caught many portfolio managers’ attention, with the Russell 2000 index of small companies rising 5.8%. Investors said a shift from accelerating globalization, which helped multinational companies, toward a focus on aiding domestic manufacturers and other companies will be beneficial.
“There is an expectation of economic policy pivoting inwardly for domestic growth, thus benefiting small-caps through broader growth,” said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading.
Few investors expected a Republican sweep of the presidency and both houses of Congress, which now looks likely. This raises its own set of uncertainties about what new policies will look like, said David Kelly, chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
“Relative to the last Trump term, it’s looking like he doesn’t have to worry about some congressional check on his actions, and of course he’s not running for re-election,” Kelly said. “That gives him a great deal of scope to pick and choose which policies he wants.”