BNY Capital Market Perspectives

The First Week

It has been a week since President-elect Trump claimed the highest office in the land, and like the unprecedented campaign that catapulted him to that position, we have seen large and unexpected moves in the markets. It is probably safe to say that Donald Trump is unlike any presidential candidate that we have seen over the past several decades. Whether he will prove to be unlike any president we have seen over these same decades is still to be seen, although investors have already made decisions based on how they expect a Trump presidency will unfold. We had been challenged by the lack of cognizant policy details throughout the election process and find ourselves no better off on this topic after the elections. The best that we can therefore do is try and envision what the new administration would focus on during its first 100 days and try to interpret what valuations are indicating about those prospects during the first seven days of trading after the elections. Given that the general consensus has been that election results were largely a surprise, we attribute the moves over the last week as completely driven by the policies of the Trump administration in light of a Republican controlled Congress.

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