Will Trump Tear Up Dodd-Frank? The Market Is Betting on It
The top beneficiary of the Trump rally so far has been the banking industry, with bets driven by the potential for higher lending rates and stronger economic growth in the coming months, not to mention the president-elect’s pledge to reject any new financial regulations.
I wouldn’t call this rally “irrational exuberance” just yet, but according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s monthly survey, fund managers have built up the largest overweight position ever in bank stocks—31 percent above their benchmarks on average.
This phenomenal run-up implies investors have confidence Trump can make good on his promise to unleash the U.S. economy and dismantle Wall Street regulations.
As I’ve made clear in previous commentaries, regulations are usually created with the best of intentions, and they’re sometimes necessary to establish a level playing field. But all too often, they end up impeding financial growth, hurting not just businesses but also consumers.
Take Dodd-Frank. What was intended as a set of policies to prevent another financial meltdown has dramatically limited consumer choice, shrunk the number of retirement options and squeezed out smaller banks and credit unions. The 2,300-page act, signed in 2010, places a monumental burden on financial institutions, from banks to brokers to investment firms, which we have felt indirectly. Even former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke had a hard time refinancing his house in 2014, one of Dodd-Frank’s unintended consequences.
Before 2010, about 75 percent of banks offered free checking accounts. Only two years later, that figure had fallen to less than 40 percent. Since the law went into effect, the U.S. has lost one community financial institution a day on average. This hurts credit-seeking small businesses and startups, not to mention consumers in the market to buy a new home or vehicle.
In House Speaker Paul Ryan’s “A Better Way” initiative, several solutions to runaway regulations are proposed. One that stands out is a “regulatory budget,” which would limit the number and dollar amount of rules federal agencies can impose every year. My hope is that Ryan and Trump can set aside their differences to streamline the ever-growing mountain of rules that weighs on American businesses and restricts the flow of capital.
The Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLF) rose $0.08 (+0.34%) to $23.45 per share in premarket trading Tuesday. Year-to-date, the largest ETF tied to U.S. banking stocks has gained 23%, more than doubling the performance of the benchmark S&P 500 during the same period.
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Standard deviation is a measure of the dispersion of a set of data from its mean. The more spread apart the data, the higher the deviation. Standard deviation is also known as historical volatility.
The MSCI World Financials Index captures large and mid-cap representation across 23 Developed Markets countries. All securities in the index are classified in the financials sector as per the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS). The Dow Jones U.S. Financials Index, a member of the Dow Jones Global Indices family, is designed to measure the stock performance of U.S. companies in the financials industry. The S&P 500 Stock Index is a widely recognized capitalization-weighted index of 500 common stock prices in U.S. companies.
About the Author: Frank Holmes
Frank Holmes is the CEO and chief investment officer of U.S. Global Investors. Mr. Holmes purchased a controlling interest in U.S. Global Investors in 1989 and became the firm’s chief investment officer in 1999. In 2006, Mr. Holmes was selected mining fund manager of the year by the Mining Journal, and in 2011 he was named a U.S. Metals and Mining “TopGun” by Brendan Wood International. He is also the co-author of The Goldwatcher: Demystifying Gold Investing. More than 30,000 subscribers follow his weekly commentary in the award-winning Investor Alert newsletter which is read in over 180 countries.
Under his guidance, the company’s mutual funds have received recognition from Lipper and Morningstar, two trusted independent financial authorities. In 2015, Mr. Holmes led the company into the exchange traded fund (ETF) business with the launch of the U.S. Global Jets ETF, which invests in the global airline sector.
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