Trump Victory Winners and Losers

James West, The Midas Letter

Not a minute to lose.

So many are surprised by Trump’s win by a significant margin, though in the financial world, where all that matters is how much tax the government is going to take, it was expected. While it remains to be seen how much of Project2025 actually makes it into policy, there are opportunities that cannot go overlooked for the financially agile.

First, and maybe most obviously, I think $DJT and $TSLA are obvious wins. Both are up significantly in the pre-market.

With the implied reduction in tax revenue for the US government, gold and silver should see strong buy-side interest as the reduced income means more bond issuances to cover interest payments.

Obviously crypto is a big winner, with Trump being touted as the “first Bitcoin president.” Currently, the stuffing is getting knocked out of the precious metals sector as a result of the crypto segment eating gold and silver’s lunch.

But here’s the question: if the argument against gold being part of the US dollar reserve asset backing is that there’s just not enough of it, how does that square with Bitcoin’s maximum issuance of 21 million bitcoins?

The immediate kneejerk market response of gold going lower while $BTC surges is likely going to be short-lived, because Bitcoin will quickly price itself out of the market with no ability to expand its volume beyond that 21 million. Though let us not dismiss the idea that the Bitcoin mandarins could be coerced into some sort of modification to accommodate Trump’s ambition for it.

There is likely going to be a sharp increase in drill permitting in the oil and gas sector, which will no doubt benefit some publicly traded names with US domestic prospective holdings. Drillers, too, should be the beneficiaries of Trump’s victory.

When Trump was last in office, here is a list of ChatGPT-generated policy initiatives that were deemed favourable to business and industry:

Tax Reforms: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. This significant cut increased after-tax profits for many companies, enabling them to invest more in expansion, hiring, and research and development.
Deregulation: The previous administration focused on rolling back regulations across various industries, including environmental protections and financial oversight. This reduction in regulatory burdens lowered compliance costs and gave businesses greater operational flexibility.
Trade Policies: Emphasizing “America First,” tariffs were imposed on certain imported goods to protect domestic industries. While this benefited some manufacturers by reducing foreign competition, it also led to increased costs for businesses reliant on imported materials.
Energy Sector Support: Policies favored the expansion of fossil fuel industries by opening up federal lands for drilling and reducing restrictions on coal and oil production. Energy companies benefited from increased opportunities and reduced regulatory hurdles.
Infrastructure Initiatives: Proposals for large-scale infrastructure projects aimed to modernize roads, bridges, and airports. Such initiatives could create jobs and boost industries related to construction, engineering, and manufacturing.
Healthcare Policy Changes: Efforts to modify or repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act were intended to reduce healthcare costs for businesses. Changes could lead to more customizable health plans and potentially lower premiums for employers.
Immigration Policies: Stricter immigration controls were designed to protect domestic labor markets. For businesses, this could result in a tighter labor supply, impacting industries that rely on immigrant workers.
Investment Incentives: Tax incentives and opportunity zones were established to encourage investment in underdeveloped areas, stimulating economic growth and offering new markets for businesses.

Trump and the Project 2025 Agenda

The biggest question we now have to face is how much of the Project2025 Agenda is actually going to be implemented?

In a worst case scenario for business and private citizens alike is the implementation of the fundamentalist Christian authoritarian theocracy expressed in the pages of the Project2025 manifesto.

And to what extent is the “this is the last time you’ll need to vote” statements that were part of his early campaign going to manifest?

The American people might yet be the biggest losers of the electoral outcome if a militarily enforced dictatorship is what is planned for America. The rest of the world will be similarly influenced toward non-democratic governance, or at the very least, authoritarian theocratic elements in the political apparatus of many countries will feel emboldened and empowered. ~~James West, The Midas Letter

James West, The Midas Letter

Not a minute to lose.

First, and maybe most obviously, I think $DJT and $TSLA are obvious wins. Both are up significantly in the pre-market.

With the implied reduction in tax revenue for the US government, gold and silver should see strong buy-side interest as the reduced income means more bond issuances to cover interest payments.

When Trump was last in office, here is a list of ChatGPT-generated policy initiatives that were deemed favourable to business and industry:

Tax Reforms: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. This significant cut increased after-tax profits for many companies, enabling them to invest more in expansion, hiring, and research and development.
Deregulation: The previous administration focused on rolling back regulations across various industries, including environmental protections and financial oversight. This reduction in regulatory burdens lowered compliance costs and gave businesses greater operational flexibility.
Trade Policies: Emphasizing “America First,” tariffs were imposed on certain imported goods to protect domestic industries. While this benefited some manufacturers by reducing foreign competition, it also led to increased costs for businesses reliant on imported materials.
Energy Sector Support: Policies favored the expansion of fossil fuel industries by opening up federal lands for drilling and reducing restrictions on coal and oil production. Energy companies benefited from increased opportunities and reduced regulatory hurdles.
Infrastructure Initiatives: Proposals for large-scale infrastructure projects aimed to modernize roads, bridges, and airports. Such initiatives could create jobs and boost industries related to construction, engineering, and manufacturing.
Healthcare Policy Changes: Efforts to modify or repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act were intended to reduce healthcare costs for businesses. Changes could lead to more customizable health plans and potentially lower premiums for employers.
Immigration Policies: Stricter immigration controls were designed to protect domestic labor markets. For businesses, this could result in a tighter labor supply, impacting industries that rely on immigrant workers.
Investment Incentives: Tax incentives and opportunity zones were established to encourage investment in underdeveloped areas, stimulating economic growth and offering new markets for businesses.

Trump and the Project 2025 Agenda

The biggest question we now have to face is how much of the Project2025 Agenda is actually going to be implemented?

In a worst case scenario for business and private citizens alike is the implementation of the fundamentalist Christian authoritarian theocracy expressed in the pages of the Project2025 manifesto.

And to what extent is the “this is the last time you’ll need to vote” statements that were part of his early campaign going to manifest?

For 30 years, Japan was the land where interest rates went to die.

The Bank of Japan used yield-curve control to keep long-term rates sedated. Traders joked that shorting Japanese bonds was the “widow-maker trade.”

Not anymore.

On November 20, 2025, everything changed. Quietly, but decisively.

The Bank of Japan finally pulled the plug on decades of easy money. Negative rates were removed. Yield-curve control was abandoned. The policy rate was lifted to a 17-year high.

Suddenly, global markets had to reprice something they had ignored for years.

What happens when the world’s largest creditor nation stops exporting cheap capital and starts pulling it back home?

The answer came fast. Bond yields in Europe and the United States began climbing. The Japanese yen strengthened sharply. Wall Street faltered.

The rate cut narrative is calcifying into gospel: the Fed must cut to save the consumer.

Bankrate reports that 59% of Americans cannot cover a $1,000 emergency without debt or selling something. And yet stocks are roaring, liquidity junkies are celebrating, and the top 10% now account for half of all consumer spending.

Here’s the plot twist: before 2020, consumer confidence faithfully tracked equity markets. After 2020, that relationship broke. As one analyst put it, “The poor don’t hate stocks going up. They just don’t feel it anymore.”

So when the Fed cuts rates in one of the hottest stock markets in history, who exactly benefits? Not the 59%. Not the middle. Certainly not anyone renting and watching shelter inflation devour their paycheck.

Only the late-stage dot-com fever dreams did better in recent memory — back when analysts were valuing companies by the number of mammals breathing inside the office.

For the moment, stocks appear unsinkable, unslappable, and perhaps uninsurable. But this is what generational technology shifts do: they take a kernel of genuine innovation and inflate a decade of growth into a 36-month highlight reel. We’ve seen this movie. It premiered in 1999 and closed with adults crying into their PalmPilots.

And just as the internet continued reshaping the world long after Pets.com curled up and died, AI will keep marching on whether or not today’s multiples survive a stiff breeze. The technology is real. The valuations, however, will eventually need to stop hyperventilating and sit down with a glass of water.

Wheelbarrows are not chickens. A chicken is a biological production unit. A wheelbarrow is a capital good. A wheelbarrow doesn’t produce work. But it CAN be a productivity multiplier.

And that’s how we have to think of all those GPUs the hyperscalers are spending money on. If their thesis is right, trillion in AI and data center spending now, will translate into a massive burst in productivity and new technologies in the next two decades. That is the only justification for the current valuations/multiples at which these stocks trade now.

The American poet William Carlos Williams wrote, “So much depends, upon a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens.”

Today the wheelbarrow is Nvidia Green. And so much of the stock market depends on that wheelbarrow being a big enough productivity multiplier to offset $340 trillion in debt.