US Election
Don't buy the dip. The equity bull market is over. The US will enter a recession in late 2024 or in early 2025.
The cyclical economy is slowing today. Republicans are now more likely to win a full sweep, crack down on immigration and trade, and at least modestly stimulate the economy. Uncertainty and volatility will rise.
Today’s attempted assassination against President Trump challenges the consensus view. It will ensure that President Trump’s supporters are highly motivated for the upcoming general election. And it may return many supporters who had drifted away from the former president back into the fold.
The conventional wisdom is wrong: Trump is not going to substantially cut taxes once in office; he is going to raise taxes by jacking up tariffs. To the extent that this dampens economic activity, it is bad news for stocks but good news for bonds.
We have turned cautious on equities for the first time since August 2022. Our end-of-the-year target for 2024, 5,500 on the S&P 500, has been reached. From here on out, any upside is gravy. However, we worry about US – not European – politics. In fact, we think investors could profit from the recent selloff in France. The real risks are in the US.
In our Volume I – The Alpha Report – we posit that the French bond market reaction is a mere amuse bouche for what is coming to the US. All year, we have warned investors that US politics could induce a bond market riot. This moment is nigh. Act accordingly!
The bond market should sell off and drag stocks down on higher odds of a single-party sweep, policy uncertainty, unorthodox Trump presidency, aggressive tariffs, large tax cuts, large budget deficits, labor shortages, a fired Fed chair, and higher inflation.
US assets and the US dollar should remain resilient relative to global peers over the next 12 months as policy uncertainty, election risk, and geopolitical risk reach a climax. After that, investors should reassess their regional allocation.
Republicans are favored in the House and Senate even if they do not win the White House. A Democratic sweep is a 20% risk. The policy implication would be inflationary, but not so much as under a Republican sweep. Election uncertainty should increasingly weigh on cyclical and high-beta assets in the second half of 2024.
Democrats remain slightly favored for the White House because they are the four-year incumbent presidential party and the economy is not in recession. But if the unemployment rate rises in the lead up to November, then Biden and Democrats will become disfavored regardless of Trump’s convictions.