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Trump's effect on UK special relationship

This article is part of
Guide to President Trump's impact on investments

According to Mr Khalaf, equity income looks to be a beneficiary of Mr Trump taking charge as investors in traditional dividend-payers such as AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline could be in for some strong payouts in the future.

Top online share buys by Hargreaves Lansdown's Vantage clients on the day after the election might indicate the direction of travel for UK investors. 

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These were, in order of volume bought: 

  • Lloyds Banking Group
  • Glencore
  • Randgold Resources
  • BooHoo.com ordinary
  • ETFs Metal Securities
  • Sirius Minerals
  • Legal & General Group
  • GlaxoSmithKline
  • Marks and Spencer Group
  • Scottish Mortgage IT

Colin Beveridge, chief investment officer for True Potential Investments, says UK investors have so far been sanguine about their stock market investments.

"Their reaction has been measured and it proves that uncertainty can be seen as an opportunity and not a threat", Mr Beveridge says.

Other equities which might do well are those in defence and defence technology, as one of Mr Trump's proposals is to increase defence spending by $55bn to $60bn a year - a 10 per cent increase - and force other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) members to do the same by "picking up their share".

Case for UK bonds

The effects of Mr Trump's pro-growth policies have already been evidenced when it comes to sovereign debt.

The policy pledges made by Mr Trump earlier this month helped to revive inflation expectations globally and in the UK - although October's CPI figure gave a surprise dip of 0.9 per cent, down from 1 per cent in September.

These inflation expectations helped to drive up bond yields, as typically, higher inflation tends to depress bond prices, lifting yields in the process.

Duration has a part to play as longer-dated bonds are typically more sensitive to inflation expectations. 

This is why the 10-year gilt rate, which is effectively the benchmark rate the UK government has to pay in order to borrow from the capital markets, has seen significant swings since Mr Trump's speech to the market.

The UK gilt rate fell drastically after the nation voted for Brexit, and hit a low in August, at 0.506 per cent. This was partly caused by investors flocking to the relative safety of UK sovereign debt in the light of global uncertainty, and by Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, announcing the first base rate cut since March 2009.

However, gilt yields hit 1.49 per cent on 14 November after Mr Trump's speech raised inflation expectations in the US and in the UK.

This has been a double-edged sword: on the one hand, investors in gilts are receiving for the first time in many months a higher-than-inflation yield.

On the other, this will put up Britain's borrowing costs and will have a negative effect on the public purse.

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, each 1 percentage point increase in gilt yields would add another £3bn to the deficit by 2019 to 2020.