Towards the end of last year and now into 2017 financial markets have embraced Donald Trump’s election victory, clawing at the hope we’ll see a more moderate and less controversial Trump in power than in pre-election campaign mode.

In pure reality, we don’t exactly know what degree or form of Trump’s policies will be passed. What we do know is that the data tells us the US economy is recovering, albeit still a relatively slow pace. It leads the way in reflating global growth. In our book, Trump has inherited a reasonably good egg but needs to spur business investment which continues to be consistently weak.

All this makes us believe investors start to 2017 should be a cautious one.

We will be keeping our eyes on three of Trump’s critical election promises which we think could particularly influence our client portfolios – economic stimulus, by way of tax cuts (personal and corporate) and infrastructure spending; protectionism, being his attitude to global trade and global trading partners; and deregulation, via avenues such as the banking sector, the environment and energy.

However, putting aside the Trump “moment”, following is a few issues that Falconer Advisers will be watching closely for our clients this year: Continue reading What we are watching in 2017 →