Stock futures in the US jumped up sharply overnight as Donald Trump declared victory in the 2024 presidential election in the early hours on Wednesday.
Trump notched up a number of significant early wins and secured key swing states North Carolina and Georgia, and was projected to have won the presidency shortly after 5.00am in Washington, DC.
As his victory looked increasingly certain, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average added around 550 points, or about 1.3 percent.
S&P 500 futures gained 1.1 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 1 percent.
Futures are derivative contracts to buy or sell an asset at a future date at an agreed-upon price.
Bitcoin also jumped to a record high, and the US dollar — which was expected to improve should Trump return to the White House – rallied against other global currencies, enjoying its best day in four years.
Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, a social media company closely tied to the candidate and the parent company of his platform Truth Social, surged 40 percent in overnight trading on the Robinhood brokerage platform.
Some investors, including Paul Christopher, head of global investment strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, had suggested not getting caught up in pre-election moves, or even those immediately after the polls close that may “face inevitable tempering, if not outright reversals, either before or after Inauguration Day.”
Analysts generally assume Trump’s plans for restricted immigration, tax cuts and sweeping tariffs would put more upward pressure on inflation and bond yields, than Harris’s center-left policies.
Trump’s proposals would also tend to push up the dollar and potentially limit how far US interest rates might ultimately be lowered.
“As the early results come in, even though none of them are that surprising, we are seeing Treasury yields rising a little bit, the dollar strengthening, bitcoin up; kind of a classic Trump trade,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.
In Asia, early trading also climbed on Wednesday morning. Japanese benchmark stock market index Nikkei 225 soared 2.6 per cent while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 0.81 per cent. New Zealand’s S&P/NZX 50 Gross Index was little changed.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, however, slumped 3 per cent and the Shanghai Composite Index tumbled 0.13 per cent. The PSEi Index in the Philippines was down 0.51 per cent.
The fall in the Chinese markets reflected investor concerns that a second Trump presidency could be overshadowed by trade and policy tensions, after he vowed during his campaign to raise trade tariffs, specifically for China, if he returned to the Oval Office.
European stock markets surged and the US dollar continued to strengthen as Mr Trump was declared victorious on Wednesday morning.
The UK’s FTSE 100 jumped by about 1.5 per cent when markets opened on Wednesday as an anticipated Republican win provides some certainty for the future of the world’s biggest economy.
The pound was down about 1 per cent against the US dollar, at 1.292, after the greenback’s sharp gains overnight.
Economists said investor sentiment in the US is being bolstered by the prospect of a lower tax environment under a Trump presidency, while the implementation of trade tariffs could serve to strengthen the US dollar.
However, the global impact of potential economic measures are still being assessed, experts said.
A group of economists for ING Economics said: “While opinion polls had suggested a close-run race, financial markets appeared increasingly confident of such an outcome, with equity markets, the dollar and Treasury yields all rising in recent weeks.
“Whether these trends remain in place depends on how quickly Trump can marshal his party and pass his legislative agenda through Congress.”
