Trump and the US election: play the ball not the man

Donald Trump has sprung an upset and markets in the short term did not react well to the uncertainty this result will undoubtedly bring. When I say the short term, I mean the very short term – a few hours, to be more explicit. When considering this election result’s effect on markets, play the ball, not the man. Trump, the personality, is not the same as Trump the policy maker. The underlying principles of the Trump campaign have been pro-growth, most particularly in the promise to lower corporate tax rates. This is pro-growth in the usual ways, but will also encourage those US corporates who are booking revenues offshore to return more of their capital home, either in the form of increased investment or increased shareholder returns. Those shareholders, in turn, will spend. At a stock level, the extreme valuation differentials between defensives with perceived low earnings risks and cyclicals that are leveraged to an economic recovery continue to reverse and the election of Trump will in all likelihood reinforce this trend.