I’ve been in the financial industry a long time, and I’m continually amazed at the market’s astuteness in making reliable, actionable forecasts.
Consider the run-up to this year’s election. Nearly every poll pointed to Hillary Clinton taking the White House, with many pegging her chances at greater than 90 percent. The market took these prognosticators to task. Historically, when the S&P 500 has turned negative between July 31 and October 31, it’s spelled doom for the incumbent party candidate. This year, the market fell more than 2 percent, setting the stage for a Donald Trump victory.
A thought-provoking Atlantic article asserts that “the press takes [Trump] literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” This is ostensibly how many Trump supporters were able to excuse his more off-color language and instead focus on his proposals. Markets were willing to do the same.
Now, those same markets seem to be placing their bets on the likelihood that Trump’s “America First” policies will benefit small-cap companies especially.
