presidential elections

A little over a month ago, conventional wisdom (and overrated pundits) said that Trump has no chance of being the republican nominee. They were all wrong, but so was the market which continued to ignore the possibility of a Trump presidency until well after the fact. And, as always happens, now is when if not the market, then certainly Goldman's clients are finally trying to catch up. As Goldman strategist David Kostin (who just one week ago warned that there is now a substantial risk of a market drop ahead of the year end), writes "Politics is now a topic in every client discussion."

As economist William Anderson explains, "presidential elections in the United States spawn Really Bad Economic Policies, and 2016 is a vintage year."

American media has repeatedly likened GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump to France's far-right Front-National party leader, and frontrunner in polling for the French 2017 presidential election, Marine Le Pen and while the forthright French politician has not explicitly named a "preferable" candidate for US president, her comments today suggest it is not Hillary Clinton.

Donald Trump has cleared the field of competitors for the Republican nomination but has still not won over one particular, and significant, constituency. Legislators have been curiously resistant to his charms, far more so than those with executive branch experience. While this pattern may have no influence on the outcome of the election, it could turn out to have large implications for the balance of powers should he be elected president.

Over the weekend, we were surprised to read that none other than recent market cheerleader Goldman Sachs had come up with six reasons why its chief equity strategist believes the market is poised for a material draw down (read "big drop") in the coming weeks. Among these were the following: