Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

If Donald Trump does what he promised...

James Meyer, who invests $1 billion in other people's money as chief investment officer of Tower Bridge Advisors in West Conshohocken, expects President-elect Trump and the Republican-led Congress to push a familiar conservative program: "tax reform, reshaping Obamacare, and reducing the regulatory burden. Each of these would be economically stimulative" because they would save companies very large piles of money.

James Meyer, who invests $1 billion in other people's money as chief investment officer of Tower Bridge Advisors in West Conshohocken, expects President-elect Trump and the Republican-led Congress to push a familiar conservative program: "tax reform, reshaping Obamacare, and reducing the regulatory burden. Each of these would be economically stimulative" because they would save companies very large piles of money.

Count Meyer with other investors who believe that Trump "is not against all Muslims, and isn't going to build a 20-foot wall" from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego.

Investors need to worry, Meyer added, if Trump shows he's serious about more radical campaign promises: "His tough stance on immigration and homeland security could deter growth."

To Matt Topley, boss at Fortis Partners, King of Prussia, "all of Trump's plans are inflationary," boosting the federal deficit or driving up prices for imports and services.

Of course, adds Topley, whose firm invests $250 million for clients, "that is more of a threat to bonds than stocks," which will keep rising if Trump's gamble works and the economy grows rapidly.

Trump's election is good news for Comcast, writes veteran cable analyst Craig Moffett: "There's a new sheriff in Washington," and "the regulatory risk for cable is dramatically lower," he told clients of his MoffettNathanson Research.

Shares of ailing mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, though still cheap, have nearly doubled in value since the election, as 30-year home mortgage rates also rose.

Gary Hindes, the Greenville, Del., and Manhattan-based hedge fund manager who is helping lead the legal fight to force the federal government to compensate Fannie and Freddie investors who lost money in the 2009 bailout, told me he's celebrating Trump's appointment of Washington investor lobbyist Ken Blackwell to Trump's transition team: Hindes expects the shareholders will more likely get paid.

What will Trump mean for the nation's busy construction industry? Plans to "deport millions of undocumented immigrants" combined with plans to fund highway projects will drive up labor costs, while tariffs would boost materials expense, writes housing analyst Buck Horne in a report to clients of Raymond James & Associates.

But that won't matter so much if Trump's tax cuts really do speed the economy and rich people buy more homes, Horne added.

For Wall Street, "Trump will nominate financial regulators who are more industry-friendly" than President Obama did, starting with Fed board members and SEC commissioners, writes Brian Gardner, bank analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods in New York.

Trump's promise to undo the executive orders that Obama enacted could benefit big money managers. Easing Obama's overtime rule would help financial employers like Vanguard Group.

Scrapping the fiduciary rule would make it easier for insurers like Lincoln National Corp. to keep selling high-fee annuities to middle America.

Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital and a relentless critic of high U.S. debt levels, says voters were right to reject Hillary Clinton and the "failed" cheap-money, higher-regulation policies she promised to extend.

But he's not sanguine about the next president's cash-management skills. "Trump has openly admitted that his business successes have been based on his ability to go deep into debt, and then to emerge, phoenix-like, on the back of good deal-making, marketing and braggadocio," Schiff told clients in a note. "His only solution is that we 'grow our way out of debt.' That is a gambler's mentality. It didn't work for him in Atlantic City."

JoeD@phillynews.com

215-854-5194

@PhillyJoeD

www.inquirer.com/phillydeals