What if he wins

The economy under a Pres. Trump

I know that by now I’m supposed to anoint Hillary Clinton as the next president — and give up on the crazy notion that Donald Trump will win.

And I’ll say it again. I don’t care who wins. I don’t like either, although I find someone as crooked and careless as Hillary more troublesome than a pig like Donald.

And while most (all?) of the media has written off Trump, the mogul hasn’t said or done anything stupid in days and he’s neck-and-neck with Hillary in some big polls and gaining in others. And then there’s this. We’ve seen a lot of hacked e-mails from others that have been damaging to Hillary but none of e-mails. Unless someone puts the kibosh on the release of Hillary’s personal e-mails — which we know were stolen — there could be a lot of very damaging things coming out about her between now and Nov. 8.

I think she’s set up for an ambush.

So, I thought today would be a good column to discuss what might happen to various financial markets if Trump should win.

I know, I know. Some of you are shaking your head and saying, “That ain’t gonna happen.” But humor me. Here’s what you might expect from the first 100 days of President Trump:

Because of the media’s obvious strong bias toward Hillary, the election of Trump would cause a shock similar to the one that was supposed to happen when Britain decided a few months ago to leave the European Union.

This Brexit, as the British pullout is known, wasn’t supposed to happen — at least if you believed polls that were just as one-sided then as the ones in our presidential election now.

So the stock market could quiver if Trump is elected, especially shares of media companies that could suffer a presidential vendetta. And multinational firms that could be hurt, too, if Trump keeps his pledge to redo trade agreements.

Companies that do business in China and Mexico could suffer the most, because those countries have been special Trump targets.

Defense companies will benefit because Trump has vowed to boost the military. And materials and construction companies will also be helped because of his proposals to rebuild the country’s infrastructure.

The stock market as a whole, however, could get banged hard, at least for a few weeks or months. That’s the same prediction many made after the Brexit vote, but the markets were just fine.

But there’s a difference now. After Brexit, the German government, the European Union and perhaps others intervened to keep the fi- nancial markets steady.

If Trump moves into the White House, he probably won’t get that kind of help — at least not right away — from the central bank or Wall Street.

He’s feuding not only with Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen — who he thinks has been incompetent — but also with Wall Street.

And Trump has said that the stock market is very overpriced.

So Wall Street might try to teach president-elect Trump a lesson by letting the market collapse a bit.

The bond market is more dangerous than the stock market.

Everyone already agrees that the Fed will soon raise interest rates. But the financial markets might not wait for the Fed if Trump is elected.

Both Hillary and Trump have vowed to spend more money to get the economy going. The problem is that the US already has $20 trillion in debt. So any additional spending will get people worrying about inflation.

And inflation worries will cause interest rates to rise. And rising rates automatically mean bond prices will fall.

Rising rates also mean that the federal deficit will go up because Washington — like everyone else — will have to pay more to borrow money.

But Trump’s election would bring another uncertainty into the bond market equation. He’s already shown his disdain for Yellen, and there have been reports that she doesn’t plan to leave that post if Trump is elected.

A fight for control over the Fed — while the dream of every columnist — would be tough on bond investors.

Oil prices will decline if Trump is elected — good for consumers, not so good for investors in the stuff.

That’s straightforward. Trump has vowed to pump as much oil as possible in the US and make the country even more energy self-sufficient.

You have to be very sophisticated to invest in the US dollar. But in the end, it either goes up or down.

The minute Trump wins, the dollar will react to his threats regarding trade deals. This is all very tricky, but here’s how it was explained to me.

Because the US has a trade deficit, our dollars end up in the hands of other countries. To be safe, those countries hedge — essentially buy insurance — against a decline in all the dollars they have accumulated.

If Trump wins and the dollar starts to fall, all those countries holding massive amounts of our currency will hhave to buy dollars to cover their shorts.

So the dollar could rise if Trump is elected — except if foreign investors see him as a possibly reckless leader. Then the dollar will lose its value as a “safe haven” in an otherwise unpredictable world.