Business

Wall Street firm predicts stock market would rally if Trump resigned

by Justine Coleman - 10/20/19 12:28 PM ET

A Wall Street investment firm predicts the stock market would rally if President Trump steps down as president.

Raymond James acknowledged Trump’s resignation is a “low probability event,” CNN Business reported. But the firm said in the “possible” event of the president stepping down it predicted Vice President Mike Pence will help the market stabilize.

“After the initial shock, we think the market rallies as Pence is a predictable, traditional, conservative choice,” CNN Business reported the firm wrote in a report published Wednesday evening.

{mosads}Raymond James analyst Chris Meekins told CNN Business that the company wrote the report because people in Washington keep talking about the possibility.

“Independently, different people associated with Trump’s orbit brought this idea up unsolicited,” Meekins said.

The investment firm asserted that drug makers, defense contractors and other businesses associated with China would excel if Trump resigned, if the country believes it will impede on the chances a Democrat will win the White House or the GOP will maintain control of the Senate, CNN Business reported.

“The markets can live happily with Pence, on trade in particular,” Greg Valliere, chief U.S. policy strategist at AGF Investments, told CNN Business. “Pence would get along far better with the Chamber of Commerce and the free trade advocates. He’d shy away from tariffs.”

If Trump were to step down, Pence would become president, and the analysts predict former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley would join Pence on the ballot in 2020 as a vice presidential candidate, according to The Detroit News.

“Trump has become so erratic and unpredictable that it’s annoying for the markets,” CNN Business said Valliere added. “Pence is a boring, conservative, pro-business Midwesterner.”

CNN Business noted it cannot be known in advance how impeachment would affect the stock market, but the market would primarily be affected by the economy’s and corporate profit’s growth.

The president has argued that his impeachment would cause the stock market to “crash.”

“Do you think it was luck that got us to the best Stock Market and Economy in our history. It wasn’t,” Trump tweeted in September.

Tags Donald Trump Mike Pence Nikki Haley