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Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Equity Strategists Say Wall Street Trend Could Predict A Romney Win

By Susan Duclos

"You bet and until we change the tempo and the conversation from Washington, it's not going to change. And those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President. And a lot of people don't want to say that. They'll say, God, don't be attacking Obama. Well, this is Obama's deal and it's Obama that's responsible for this fear in America."--- Steve Wynn, the CEO of casino company Wynn Resorts

A couple quotes from different equity strategists in a CNBC article show how Wall Street could already be betting on a Mitt Romney win in November 2012.

The first quotes comes from Morgan Stanley chief U.S. equity strategist Adam S. Parker:

The conclusion Parker draws is that investors are betting that Romney will unseat President Obama and bring a more business-friendly environment to the White House.

"At the end of the day, we are not really worried that Europe is going to be 'solved' or that its economy will strongly grow. We also don’t think strong corporate profitability relative to expectations will save the day," he said.

"To us, the biggest bull case for US equities is based on the huge cash balances and the potential belief that they will be more actively and productively deployed. The biggest possibility here would be Romney winning the presidential election."

The second set of statements come from Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at S&P, who says "Many investors I have spoken with believe that if the S&P 500 should rise between July 31 and Oct. 31, it would signal an impending Romney victory."

"The recovering market would be a sign that the perceived anti-Wall Street policies of the current administration will soon come to an end, as the incumbent would be replaced and that a plurality on the Potomac might even return as a result of the early November outcome," he added. "Unfortunately for these presumptive prognosticators, history indicates, but does not guarantee, that the opposite has usually been true."

The trend, Stovall said, has been accurate 82 percent of the time over the past century.
Back in June it was reported that Wall Street was putting it's money where it's mouth is, and making their preference Mitt Romney very clear, even former 2008 Obama donors and supporters have walked away from him and are donating to Romney.

Despite Barack Obama's all out war on Wall Street over the last nearly four years, and liberals jumping on the anti-Wall Street bandwagon, (RE: Occupy Wall Street), they will be a very large part of bringing U.S. economic growth back online which will happen much faster if they believe the next administration will be more economy and growth friendly.

Another indicator of Barack Obama's policies being bad for business, so to speak, is job creation which falls directly to business owners, large and small, and recent news from that sector shows that even before Obama's unfortunate "you didn't build that"comment, approval for Obama's job performance among business owners had dropped to the lowest levels and disapproval the highest of any other occupational sector figures. (Approval 35%- Disapproval 59%)

According to Gallup, the the top issues, federal budget deficit, economy, creating jobs and taxes all show Americans favoring Mitt Romney as being "better able to handle" those key issues than Obama, with 63 percent of Americans saying Romney's business background would cause him to make good decisions about how to deal with economic problems the U.S. would face, while 29 percent say it would cause him to make bad decisions. A majority of independents say Romney would make good decisions.

92 percent of Americans believe job creation, which is the overriding theme of Mitt Romney's campaign and stump speeches, is the single most important issue and raising taxes on the wealthy, which is Obama's overriding campaign theme and mentioned in almost all his stump speeches, is the least important of the 12 key issues Gallup asked about in their interviews.

Add all that together and it makes sense that Wall Street would place their bets on Romney.

Last but not least, an answer to Hot Air's exit question via Ace: Wouldn’t a market rally just before the election actually help … Obama?

Yes, unless of course Wall Street strategists and analysts explained the reason for it was their belief that Mitt Romney would be elected president in 2012...... oh, that's right, they just did.