That was interesting, I just finished watching a segment of the election on the CNBC show Fast Money. The video may or may be up later tonight one never knows with CNBC, so I’ll recap a bit.
First this is important because so much of our financial press is dominated by these market focused outlets and they in turn influence how the broader media reports on the economy. Now Fast Money is a show basically devoted stock traders (not day traders) people who are in and out of stocks a lot. Not investors who buy and hold.
There appears to be a bit of fear creeping in with the idea of Trump 2.0. This is all subtext but as someone who watches this show for entertainment purposes pretty clear. Most of it was as expected, Trump will have it this week or next and it will be the longest head to head campaign anyone can remember. Since everybody knows what the candidates are like normal election year market volatility will be absent. EV and Green energy will get hit with Trump and Oil stocks will benefit. All pretty standard.
But where it got interesting is the person they brought on who tracks what the market is thinking after stating its a 50/50 race as far as the market goes went into some of the stocks they use to track that. He highlighted immigration stocks that sort of took the panel back a bit when asked to expand for Trump he listed a host of private prison companies and Motorola (border patrol supplier), but for the Biden side he started with ADP and other employment services companies. Wow, Wall Street picking between prisons and jobs.
Coming out of his piece the first trader noted that Trump took over last time when the Market was posting new highs consistently just as it is now. This led to talk about another round of tariffs and further a worry about the geopolitical situation right now and how it could get worse. That in turn led to a round of re-inflation fears and struggles that would pose to the re-industrialization trend.
For me someone who watches these people pretty frequently and has deciphered the code to an extent, seeing them actually consider what Trump 2.0 may mean was fascinating. Especially the group dynamics. Of course the segment had to end with a bit of reassurance that actually fell a little flat. That was that the Trump Tax Cuts and much of the ACA support will be rolling off in 2025 and the bond or currency markets will impose some discipline. Discipline always falls flat after a discussion of Trump.