Marc Ruiz of Oak Partners, Mind on Money: Finding Hope Post-Election

Marc-Ruiz What if last Tuesday was just what the doctor ordered for investors and our nation? For the most part, there were no logical surprises in the mid-term elections this week. The models, and history, all indicated the Democrats should take the House of Representatives, and the pre-election numbers in the Senate gave virtually no chance of a flip.

The predictable outcome was rewarded by a 1 percent-plus gain in the major U.S. stock market indexes on Wednesday, and with the election behind us, one more layer of uncertainty has been stripped away. Hopefully financial markets can get back to focusing on economic fundamentals, which remain particularly strong at this time.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for the rhetoric on both sides of the political spectrum to tone down. While President Trump has the unique ability to provoke the rage of the left with the slightest tweet, there’s no doubt the left has been wholeheartedly embracing its rage without restraint as well.

In an ideal world, now that the left has its platform in the House, the Democratic Party can begin to focus on ideas rather than just resistance, and now that Trump will be forced to play nice with the new House majority, he can lighten up on the inflammatory tweets and get back to making deals. Yes, I am holding my breath.

I’ve felt that in the absence of having a platform to control, the Democratic Party has been forced to cater to the far-left Socialist contingent of the party. One of my secret hobbies is incognito debate with the Socialists on Twitter, and from my experience on that platform, I can tell you the Socialist mindset is fundamentally radical and uncooperative.

This Socialist theology is not to make the American free market system, which is of course the most prosperous economic system ever created in the history of the planet, more generous and fairer, it is rather to tear it down and reinvent it as something else. This type of rhetoric and mentality is not productive and not American. I hope, now that the Democratic Party has been given the opportunity to lead, it will find more balance in its ranks and be the healthy political counterbalance that every constitutionally free society requires.

There are deals to be made, and we all know who loves making deals more than anyone else. While there is unlikely to be a border wall anytime soon, both parties can focus on rebuilding infrastructure, finding a balanced approach toward health insurance and medical cost reform, and perhaps softening the rabid anti-globalist negotiation tactics being employed by the Trump administration against China. I’m not going to say who I agree or disagree with on any of these issues, but as an investor I am hopeful and watching closely.

If the two parties can begin to work together, opportunities could be created in materials stocks, multinational industrial companies and maybe even energy. And if anyone has some speculative money they are looking to deploy, it’s hard to find a market that looks beat up any worse than the Chinese stock market right now.

So, the world didn’t end Tuesday night, and we’ve all been through this before. Perhaps the most American trait of all is hope, and I did manage to find some on Wednesday morning.