Week Ahead - January 27, 2025

Market Commentary – January 27, 2025

Last week saw the beginning of the second Trump Administration with a flurry of executive orders and new initiatives.

As we anticipated in our 2025 Year Ahead report, Trump’s “America First” policy is drawing investment capital into the U.S. from abroad. The U.S. has the nicest house on the global block of ugly economies, which has allowed for the country to enjoy significant equity outperformance vs. other stock markets and economies around the world. The policies of the new administration, with their lighter regulatory touch, are perceived as business-friendly, and are therefore luring investors from abroad. The presence of Mukesh Ambani, head of India’s Reliance Industries, and Bernard Arnault, CEO of French luxury goods maker LVMH at Trump’s inauguration was indicative of this impact; in fact, afterwards, luxury company stocks began to move abroad. And this is what Trump is doing: he’s building a tight alliance of very wealthy corporate leaders worldwide, marshaling their support and investment for his goals. Key players in this network include the American tech CEOs, all billionaires: Zuckerberg (Meta Platforms), Bezos (Amazon) and of course Musk (Tesla, Space X, and X), who were all present at the inauguration.