How do you think a potential Trump victory will affect the market, in terms of short term immediate effects? (I'm actually asking, not being sarcastic).

It's hard for me to predict in this case, but if Bernie were to win, I kind of expect a temporary downturn as people panic due to Bernie's promise of attacking "wall street".

He favours a "temporary" ban on nearly a quarter of the world's population entering the US, delays to company's ability to hire anyone from overseas and a trade war with China... and also talks a lot about attacking Wall Street though without appearing to have any concrete policies to deal with it.

I don't think an unfunded plan to cut corporation tax is really going to tip things in his favour.

I don't think Wall St buys Trump's populist rhetoric. His words aren't worth much and I'm sure Wall St knows much better where he actually stands on these issues than the average Trump supporter.

Personally I don't believe he would actually try to implement any of the stuff he says he has planned. He would probably just try to make it seem like he's making big changes while not doing much at all.

I feel the same way. I think the candidate who would create the least disturbance in the market would be Hillary. Compared to Trump and Bernie, she's the more normal "politician" which usually translates to "least likely to change anything" in the eyes of a lot of people.

uh, his wall street plan is to get rid of carried interest and increase taxes on fund managers. i think we found some funding a corporate tax cut (if that's in fact what he's proposed).

He also proposes taxing _all_ income from pass-through vehicles (such as private equity funds, VC funds, and hedge funds) at 15%. Trump may eliminate the carried interest loophole, but he does so by lowering taxes until the loophole is irrelevant.

I consider this clear proof that he thinks his voters are chumps.

Do reasonable people actually believe the President can implement such plans unopposed?

Executive orders?

Facing instability, financial markets tend to run the other way. Trump is instability personified.

Markets crave financial stability and Trump is impulsive and seems to either not understand, or not care, about the long-term effects of the policies he mentions.

One example is his plan to get Mexico to pay for his wall, which involves holding hostage the wire payments that flow from people in the U.S. to their relatives in Mexico.

Financial institutions make money on those payments, but from a broader perspective the concept of holding capital flows hostage to policy ideas is deeply scary to Wall Street.

What if Trump decides that capital from Middle East sovereign funds will be hindered until they pay a greater share of the cost of fighting ISIS? What if he decides to hinder capital flows from China until they let their currency's value rise more? Etc.

What attacks could a president perform? An R congress will plant their heels. Even attempting to clean up malfeasance and nepotism at the SEC, "the President does not possess the power to fire the appointed Commissioners, a provision that was made to ensure the independence of the SEC."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Securities_and_Exchange_C...

I personally doubt the president could do anything, but I'm mainly talking about the irrational fears of people.

True.

On the other hand, suppose we had a 100pct trustworthy marketplace (unlike now). Wouldn't that spur investment and boost the markets? The only thing we get with the current system is rich wall street execs.

I'm sure President Trump would appoint a justice that would be fond of the "unitary executive" theory. The 10th Circuit rejected that theory (Blinder, Robinson & Co., SEC v., 855 F.2d 677 (10th Cir. 1988)), but who knows what could happen.

He did end up making a 45% gain in < 2 years on billions of dollars by betting big on AAPL. If, as the fund manager, he gets 20% of those gains, he made $500m-1bn.

It's his own money (~$20 billion) he plays with these days. So he kept the entire gain.

Must've been a good day, when he liquidated.

Warren Buffet on a Trump victory: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-as-pres...

Speaking of AAPL, this news puts his well publicized dump of the stock in a different light. He was obviously hoping it would cause a much broader and more severe sell off.

No. That would be illegal manipulation, and he is not that dumb.

Why do people talk about Trump winning as a foregone conclusion? I saw a liberal news site do the same thing earlier today. I find it very strange.