Prominent bankers are preparing for another four years where the world’s most powerful leader will once again be the regular-rage-posting Donald Trump.
Bloomberg reports that bankers—like the chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, among others—are putting measures in place to be ready for the market volatility that will inevitably come from with a second Trump presidency along with the 78-year-old’s online presence.
“It would be hard for that tiger to change his stripes,” Art Hogan, the chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth, told Bloomberg. “That’s one of his main transmission vehicles for thoughts he has.”
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Steve Chiavarone, the senior portfolio manager at Federated Hermes, told Bloomberg he expects Trump will be more pointed in his attacks and criticisms of companies.
“He’s not going to speak in generalizations,” he said. “He’s going to call out and try to make examples of specific companies that are publicly traded equities in the hopes of influencing their decision-making.”
Among those expected criticisms, Chiavarone reportedly said, will be Trump pressuring companies to up their production and manufacturing in the states.
Another likely target will be Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who told reporters Thursday that he will not resign if Trump asks him to. Powell’s own term is up in 2026, and Trump—despite his efforts previously—does not have the power to have him fired.
Powell, 71, was appointed by Trump in 2017, but has had his fair share of rifts with the president-elect over the years, namely with Trump complaining that Powell was not easing monetary policy quickly enough.
“Where did I find this guy Jerome?” the then-president tweeted in 2019. “Oh well, you can’t win them all!”
Steve Sosnick, of Interactive Brokers, told Bloomberg that he was “perpetually on edge” during Trump’s first term, knowing that “something could happen at any time.”
Trump’s words often reverberated through the markets. The S&P 500 reportedly fell for four straight sessions in May 2019 after Trump promised to hike tariffs on Chinese goods as part of a trade war with the country.
On the flip, Trump’s election night landslide appeared to be the cause behind the S&P 500 spiking to an all-time high while small caps also had their best day in two years.
Bloomberg reported that Trump’s around-the-clock posting could have a bigger impact in the coming years than it did in his first term. That’s because many trading platforms, like Robinhood Markets Inc., are now around-the-clock during the week and will react even quicker to Trump’s erratic online posts.
“It raises the potential for intraday volatility or single-stock volatility,” Sosnick told the website. “It certainly can lead to outsize moves when liquidity is thinner.”
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