Forecasters not only said Donald Trump would lose last month. They also thought markets would collapse if he won. Quite the opposite has happened. Investors expect all the good things Mr Trump promised and none of the bad. Instead of global trade wars and mass deportation of immigrants, the equity markets foresee tax cuts, deregulation and big spending. Almost every index has hit recent highs since November 8, adding more than $1tn to US equity valuations and almost five per cent to the dollar’s trade-weighted value. Global markets are gearing up for a Trump boom. In that respect Mr Trump is already heir to Ronald Reagan.
But the seeds to the reversal of the “Trump trade” are already sown. The biggest threat will come from the US Federal Reserve. On Wednesday, Janet Yellen, the Fed chair, will almost certainly raise US interest rates for only the second time in a decade.
Before Mr Trump’s victory, the Fed signalled it was likely only to increase rates three or four times before 2019. That was because it anticipated continued fiscal retrenchment. Mr Trump’s victory has blown that up. A unified Republican government is poised to bring about the fiscal stimulus that it has been blocking Democrats from carrying out for years.