JPMorgan: Wall Street is too negative over a potential Biden presidency

According to JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wall Street is too negative on prospects for the markets if Democratic candidate Joe Biden wins the U.S. presidential election in November.

Joanna Ossinger for Bloomberg News:

Numerous factors could make Biden more market-friendly than analysts currently predict, including a historical tendency to converge toward the political center, potential benefits from infrastructure spending, a softening of tariff rhetoric and higher wages, strategists including Dubravko Lakos-Bujas and Marko Kolanovic wrote in a note Monday…

Wall Street has gone from relief that Biden is the presumptive nominee over more progressive candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, to concern that an election victory could hurt stocks through policy moves like a rollback of Trump-era tax cuts. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Democratic tax changes could lower S&P 500 earnings per share to $150 from its forecast $170 in 2021.

A survey last month by RBC Capital Markets showed investors are more worried about the November election than another wave of Covid-19 infections…

JPMorgan looked at stocks that may fare better or worse if Biden is the victor in November. Potential outperformers under a Democratic agenda include companies like Tesla Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Caterpillar Inc. and Apple Inc., according to the report. Underperformers might be firms such as Apache Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp., AT&T Inc. and Wynn Resorts Ltd., they said.

MacDailyNews Take: Someday, we hope the deification/vilification of the U.S. presidency will end.

The U.S. president is but a person; flawed, as is everyone, and merely the head of one of three co-equal branches of government (i.e. not a king; on purpose). You’d think the last 244 years of presidents would have taught us that they aren’t gods/devils, at least.

The U.S. presidency calls out for an unassuming person who can reset and ratchet down the misplaced adulation/condemnation. Sadly, the way we elect presidents today – 30-second TV commercials, YouTube videos, armies of spinners infesting the news infotainment media, and ludicrous “debates” that aren’t even debates at all — an unassuming person is the very last person who’d ever bother to run, much less get elected to that thankless office.

For the several decades, at least, the people who want that job are, frankly, damaged in some way or multiple ways. For many years now, with several examples, narcissism seems to be the prevailing qualification for obtaining the office. Seriously, no sane person would want that job (or be willing to do what’s required to get it).

Don’t complain that the U.S. keeps electing narcissistic egomaniacs when virtually all of the requirements for getting elected to that job requires the candidate be a narcissistic egomaniac. If you want a competent unassuming president, stop electing presidents via TV commercials, YouTube videos, media spin doctors and a handful of televised pretend “debates.” (It’ll never happen. There’s too much money in the every 4th year presidential ad cycle.)

“No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it.” ― John Adams