NEW YORK— The longest bull market run in American history could get killed off by a financial collapse in Turkey, a policy mistake by the Federal Reserve or a plain old economic recession.
It will probably not be slain by an impeachment of President Donald Trump.
That’s the consensus view of Wall Street traders and money managers, who say that while an ugly impeachment fight might cause temporary volatility, markets could easily survive an impeachment and even the unlikely event that Trump is removed from office in a Senate trial.
In fact, Wall Street pros often talk about a potential relief rally if Trump departs the White House early.
The underlying economy would remain strong, and a hypothetical President Mike Pence would likely continue Trump’s policy of low taxes and fewer regulations without all the wild tweeting and investigations and persistent trade wars.
“I’m not sure the market would be all that upset by Trump being forced to leave,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group. “Many Republicans might welcome it, and if Pence moves in, the basic low regulation, low tax nature of the presidency would be the same, only without the constant self-induced volatility, and maybe ‘trade wars' would diminish.”
Trump says 'market would crash' if he were impeached
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Trump took a very different view in an interview with Fox News that aired Thursday morning, saying the stock market likely would collapse if he were impeached.
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“I will tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor,” he said, amid new legal turmoil this week with two former advisers, Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, now guilty of criminal acts.
Trump loves to bask in the stock market advance under his presidency and boasted this week about the length of the bull market. And stocks have indeed celebrated his policies on taxes and regulation.
But markets now move very little on news of fresh legal trouble for Trump. And analysts say that’s in part because the economic and stock market recoveries long predate Trump’s presidency and would probably live on without him.
“Fading trade wars, no change in corporate taxes and the deregulatory air in Washington would be something of a ‘Washington Goldilocks’ situation,” Michael Obuchowski, portfolio manager at Merlin Asset Management, said of a potential impeachment.
