Michael Steinhardt: more good news for investors

published 22 July 2016

Legendary trader and chairman of WisdomTree Investments Michael Steinhardt is generally bullish on the US stockmarket. It "is certainly not cheap", but the fact that it keeps rising in the face of negative sentiment "leads me to believe that the markets are OK" and that "it will continue to go up until interest rates are raised meaningfully". That might take a while, says Steinhardt, who believes rate rises in the near future will be limited to "another quarter of a point or something like that".

In the longer term, "the American economy will continue to grow but not very quickly". While many people on Wall Street are worried about the presidential election, Steinhardttakes a more relaxed perspective.

In his view, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton "is fairly predictable" and it is "not unreasonable" to think that "her policies will be a continuation of what we've seen". Indeed, Steinhardt thinks that she could generate "excitement" if she wins "and declares that she is investing in infrastructure". This is because "there has been so little infrastructure spending for a long time in the US".

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Meanwhile, although the Republican candidate Donald Trump has "no background and no experience", his plan for cutting personal and corporate taxes is likely to be backed by the Republican-controlled Congress and could end up boosting stocks greatly.

The only downside is that his plans to tear up trade agreements and impose tariffs on Chinese goods could hit global growth. However, China, he says, is currently managing its problems well, "starting to put a lid on the outflows" and stabilising its foreign-currency reserves.

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