Former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt on Saturday at an election rally in Butler, PA, an event that fueled a market rally (^DJI, ^IXIC, ^GSPC) and positive sector moves over the weekend.
UBS Global Wealth Management co-lead of ElectionWatch Tom McLoughlin joins Catalysts to discuss the potential impact on the upcoming election and financial markets.
McLoughlin suggests that while the assassination attempt will have "a little bit of staying power" throughout the remainder of the 2024 election cycle, its influence may be less significant than initial reactions suggest. He notes that historically, candidates who survive assassination attempts do experience a temporary boost in polls, but "it tends not to last."
"Sooner or later, we're going to get back to the overriding issues in this election," McLoughlin explains, citing economic concerns, regulatory matters, and tax policies as key factors. He emphasizes that "these overarching factors... will become more important over time."
Well, investors still looking at the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump and digesting how it could impact the election and policy going forward. Joining me now on this, we've got Tom McGlochlin, co-lead for Election Watch at UBS Global Wealth Management. Tom, it's great to have you on on this. Appreciate you joining us this morning. I just want to get a gut check from you this morning about the way you think that the events over the weekend are going to hold over the course of this election. How much staying power does this have?
Well, good morning, Madison. I think it has a little bit of staying power, but probably not quite as much as people may think this morning. Most in most of the circumstances, you'll see a little bit of a bump for the individual who's been subjected to an assassination attempt. We saw that in Reagan. We saw that in Ford back in 75. But it tends not to last. You could it could last two or three weeks, maybe a month. But sooner or later, we're going to get back to the overriding issues in this election, which will be issues some of them which were identified by Michael, including things like the economy generally, regulation, certainly, tax, the tax act that will have to basically be passed by Congress next year. So there are these overarching factors that I think will become more important over time.
Those overarching factors here, though, I wonder how much they impact the market heading into November because we're looking at gains today, for example, but you could argue that that is more driven by the second quarter earnings cycle kicking up here than any sort of political volatility.
It could be, yeah, it could be that. It also could be a little bit of a relief in the sense that it could have been worse. I mean, we actually, sympathy goes out to the families of those who've been critically injured and the individual who passed away. But there's a relief in the sense that what is certainly a a bit of a tragedy, it could have been much worse had the president actually just been killed, or the former president. So we're looking at a situation where hopefully we get back to a bit more normal. We've got the former president appearing in Milwaukee and when he does so, he'll go ahead, I expect, and basically call for unity and try to ratchet back the amount of virulent statements that have been made on both sides of the election. So I think to some degree we're looking at a situation where everybody is looking forward to a convention where there'll be calls for unity and kind of slowing down a bit on the on the rhetoric.
Well, it's interesting because we heard both President Biden and former President Trump using the same word over the weekend, which is unity. I'm curious from your perspective, how likely do you think it is that the speakers at the RNC over the course of this week are going to be able to continue that talking point of unity and potentially be able to bring in some voters who have been put off by the political back and forth and violence frankly that we've been seeing.
Yeah, the country is obviously very polarized at this point and you see individuals on the left or on the right basically digging into their position. The amount of or the number of voters who are completely undecided and are able to swing to one candidate or the other are is diminishing, but they are the most important voters today and they are those voters have to be in six or seven states. So a lot of attention will be directed to those individuals who haven't quite made up their mind yet. I think the former president's reaction on the podium after he was shot will probably convince some voters. As to the convention itself, I think there will be a push to try to tone down the rhetoric so that the former president can basically, you know, act as the future chief executive, um, in the hope that he gets elected. And there'll probably be a number of quiet conversations with a number of speakers asking them to tone it back and ratchet it back a bit.
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Addressing the implications of this political unrest for voters, McLoughlin says, "The country's obviously very polarized at this point, and you see individuals on the left and on the right basically digging into their positions." He adds: "The number of voters who are completely undecided and are able to swing to one candidate or the other is diminishing, but they are the most important voters today."
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This post was written by Angel Smith