If Donald Trump is elected, markets will drop, said Bridgewater Associates back in November. Now they’re saying that if he’s impeached — well, markets will still fall.
That’s according to a note from the world’s biggest hedge fund, Bridgewater, on Thursday, as seen by Business Insider.
Bridgewater’s Greg Jensen and Jason Rotenberg wrote that if President Trump is indeed impeached, U.S. equities will dive into correction territory with an 11% drop, while gold prices will push upward by 14%. Those estimates would wipe $2.3 trillion off the S&P 500 based on Thursday’s close, and completely wipe out the “Trump rally” — leaving roughly $18.8 trillion in the S&P 500. Additionally, European and Japanese equities would also be in for a fall of 12% and 16%, respectively.
That note comes on the heels of a market sell earlier this week sparked by recent turmoil in the White House. Investors grew jittery as details surrounding Trump’s dismissal of then FBI director James Comey came to light. Now, Wall Street analysts have begun to discuss the likelihood of Trump’s impeachment.
For its part, Bridgewater sees a 50% chance that Trump fails to complete his first term in office.
Still, its no sure thing, predicting how markets will react to major political events.
On the day of the elections, Bridgewater sent a note to clients predicting, like many of its financial peers, that the businessman’s election would result in a 10.4% equity sell off. Instead, Trump was elected, and the markets soared. It was investors like Carl Icahn who ended up making the right bet and reaping the winnings.
Similarly, there are other investors that seem to be seeing a different outcome of a potential Trump impeachment than Bridgewater. Namely, short seller Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates, who said Thursday that markets have already begun to price-in a much more stable person to follow up on Trump’s presidency: now Vice President Mike Pence.
Who actually hits the mark, though, will require Washington, D.C., officials to actually initiate impeachment proceedings.
So far, that doesn’t look to be in the pipeline.
