WASHINGTON (New York Times) - Wall Street strategists say their meetings with portfolio managers have taken a dark turn lately. All but gone are investors’ fears of a hard landing, replaced by a deeper anxiety that things could go very badly around Election Day.
Investors are not just concerned about their investment portfolios or retirement funds. They’re worried about political turmoil in the U.S. As in … will it hold up if the result of the election between Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is contested?
“The general consensus is that, one, it will take time to find the winner — so we might have to wait for days until the many contests and court challenges have played out,” Joachim Klement, the head of investment strategy at the investment bank Liberum, told DealBook. “And two, no matter who wins, there will be civil unrest.”
Klement spoke with DealBook shortly after wrapping up a multicity investor roadshow. He said investors were worried about violence: Intelligence agencies have issued bulletins warning of possible election-related violence, and voters, too, are on high alert, some polls show.
Investor pessimism may reflect the race’s increasingly negative tone. One of Trump’s former chiefs of staff said Trump met the definition of a fascist. And Harris called him a “petty tyrant.”
In turn, Trump punctuates his rallies with a litany of grievances and has made ominous threats to deploy the military against “radical left lunatics” and “the enemies from within.”
Language like that may be stoking memories of the last presidential race, which culminated in the deadly Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and fears that the peaceful transition of power is far from certain.