If you think Republican Donald Trump will win the Presidential election on Tuesday, then you might want to invest now in gold.
Stocks are falling and gold is rising as Democrat Hillary Clinton slips in the polls. Gold is, of course, the ultimate hedge against chaos in financial markets, so it’s pretty clear how Wall Street views a Trump presidency– with great anxiety.
Gold has risen nearly $30 an ounce in the seven days since FBI Director James Comey effectively endorsed Trump by announcing more email from Clinton’s private server had been found.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 average has fallen for nine days in a row, losing 3.1 percent in the longest consecutive slide since 1980.
PredictIt, a website where people trade predictions on the future, sees a strong correlation between the odds of a Trump victory and the price of gold.
“We consistently see that as Trump does better, investors increasingly take defensive positions in gold, bid down the peso, and get generally more skittish about equity prices,” according to the website.
The candidate himself apparently feels the same way. In August he told Fox Business his money is now out of the stock market.
Those scary scenarios may be of his own making. The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial Saturday that Trump’s policies on tariffs and trade could cause a recession.
“The main economic battle in a Trump administration would be between his pro-growth domestic efforts and his anti-growth trade policy,” the Journal wrote, concluding that a vote for Trump is “a gamble on the political unknown.”
The business world doesn’t like uncertainty. On Friday Citibank analysts said a Trump victory could spark an immediate sell-off of up to 5 percent for the S&P 500. They also warned of slower growth or even a recession for the United States.
Many Republicans have argued that as a successful businessman, Trump is uniquely qualified to improve the American economy. But it’s also important to remember that the last Republican businessman to be elected President was Herbert Hoover, who signed the ruinous Smoot-Hawley tariffs into law and presided over the beginning of the Great Depression.
Chris Jennewein is editor and publisher of Times of San Diego.