Geography  

Assessing Trump's effect on global markets

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

After the election result was announced, Japanese equity funds saw a US$1.3bn inflow, according to EPFR Global.

Japan Real Estate ETFs remains the most popular Japanese sector for EPFR global-tracked equity ETFs (see the graph below).

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According to Jesper Koll, head of Japan for ETF provider Wisdom Tree: "Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's meeting with President-elect Trump is likely to underscore a strong US-Japan alliance, with possible positive implications for US-Japan economic and financial relations."

Meanwhile, a weaker yen as a result of Mr Trump's election victory has "created a strong sense of relief", says Katsunori Kitakura, lead strategist at SuMi Trust.

He adds: "Mr Trump's policies are likely to be inflationary and should accelerate the rise in interest rates.

"As a result, the yen will weaken against a stronger dollar and will provide an improved earnings outlook for [Japanese exporters]."

Commodities

Gold has been an immediate winner, with demand for the yellow metal pushing prices up significantly in the run-up to, and the immediate aftermath of, the US election.

By the early hours of 9 November as the results came in, the spot gold price rose to £1,059.53. It has since fallen to £955.31 (as at 17:15pm on 23 November), but is still better than the six-month low of £821.67, according to online gold dealer BullionByPost.

Nathalie Dempster, managing director for central banks and public policy at the World Gold Council, comments: "Short-term volatility in the wake of the election was inevitable, as it signalled a major political and economic change.

However, the subsequent fall in prices suggests, according to analysts such as Ben Seager-Scott, Tilney Bestinvest’s director of investment strategy, that the commodity has fallen "victim to volatility" following Mr Trump’s win.

He told sister newspaper Investment Adviser: "Post-election we’ve seen an equity rally, and many investors may have been tempted to sell down their gold positions to join in with the rush.”

Whether equity investors had been holding it as a hedge and then using the ensuing equity market volatility to sell out of gold and buy on the dips remains unclear. 

However, Ms Dempster believes there are longer-term trends for the precious metal: "We are seeing increasingly fractious politics across the advanced economies, and this trend, combined with uncertainty over the aftermath of years of unconventional monetary policy measures, will firmly underpin investment demand for gold in the coming years."

Yet diversification, as always, is the key - across asset classes, geographies, duration and style.

Tina Weeks, founder of Serenity Financial Planning, says: "A well-crafted, globally diversified lifetime investment portfolio is built with foresight in mind.

"It is well-spread geographically and contains thousands of individual securities to weather all market storms and absorb the latest panics and crises which will be thrown at it."