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In a survey of 119 investors, 53% said they thought Donald Trump would defeat Kamala Harris.
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The investors said fossil fuel and industrial companies should do well under Trump, per the survey.
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Stanley Druckenmiller said in mid-October that markets were “very convinced” of a Republican victory.
Many of the bigwigs of finance have picked their sides, but Wall Street seems to believe one candidate has the upper hand in this year’s presidential election.
Betting markets have leaned toward former President Donald Trump, and the billionaire investor Stan Druckenmiller said the financial markets had already priced in a Trump win. A note from the London-based Barclays analyst Emmanuel Cau said European stocks were already trading at a discount because of the potential impact of tariffs.
In a survey of SumZero’s investor community — a mix of small hedge funds, family offices, private-equity firms, and more — taken over the first two weeks of October, 53% said they believed Trump would prevail. The survey included responses from just 119 members, but it’s drawn from a segment of analysts and investors influencing meaningful amounts of money. The consensus among respondents was that a Trump victory would create a favorable environment for companies in the fossil fuels, financials, and US industrials sectors.
Meanwhile, most respondents said that “renewable energy, ESG investments, and retail” might struggle. SumZero — which was founded by Divya Narendra, who started Facebook’s predecessor with the Winklevoss twins in college — has more than 16,000 investors on its platform sharing investment ideas, according to its website.
This Trump belief isn’t limited to fans of the former president.
Ken Griffin, the billionaire Citadel founder and big GOP donor, has been critical of the former president, calling him a “three-time loser” in 2022. But at a conference in Saudi Arabia last week, he predicted Trump would beat Vice President Kamala Harris, even if it’s close.
“It is a race that Trump is favored to win, but it is almost a coin toss,” Griffin said at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh.
Prediction markets, which have exploded this year as online gambling grows across the US, certainly lean toward Trump, and Druckenmiller said in mid-October that markets were “very convinced” of a Republican victory.
But Wall Street has certainly been wrong before. Few mainstream investors and bankers supported Trump in his first run when he unexpectedly beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. This time around, he has big-name billionaire supporters, such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and a victory wouldn’t catch the investment community off guard again. One of the world’s most accurate economists, Christophe Barraud, for instance, is putting his credibility on the line for a Trump win.
