Wall Street's wishes for new leader
A decisive victory was Wall Street's preference for Tuesday's election. What other key points do investors care about with the upcoming Obama administration? Steve Chiotakis talks to Alisa Roth in New York.
The floor of the New York Stock Exchange (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
More on Wall Street, Politics
TEXT OF INTERVIEW
Steve Chiotakis: All eyes, of course, are on Barack Obama. And the question in financial circles around the world is, what next?
We're joined by Marketplace's Alisa Roth in New York with reaction from investors there. Alisa, what does Wall Street want from Obama?
Alisa Roth: I think that the thing that Wall Street most wanted from a president-elect, it's gotten, which is that it wanted a decisive victory. Really, the worst-case scenario for Wall Street would have been a repeat of 2000, to wake up this morning and not know who the new president's gonna be.
I talked to Steven Wood this morning, he's a senior portfolio strategist at Russell Investments. And he says this means the market can go back to just being a market:
Steven Wood: With a clear, decisive victor, markets are gonna go back to worrying about earnings, capital markets, credit flows -- and those are the kind of things markets should be worrying about.
One of the things he said that I thought was interesting is that with a financial crisis this big, it really doesn't matter that much that it's Obama versus McCain, because in terms of dealing with the crisis, there just aren't all that many options. What may be a bigger issue for Wall Street is what happened on Capitol Hill last night.
Chiotakis: Being the election, of course -- there's a stronger majority for the Dems in Washington right now in the House and Senate. So what does that mean?
Roth: Well, gridlock has a really negative connotation as a word, but in terms of business and politics, it means that changes can't come to quickly, they can't be too radical. So with a Democratic majority, even not a complete majority, I think that Wall Street's gonna be nervous about new legislation, new regulations that are going through. Obviously the big, big change will be oversight to the financial sector. But in any case, once we move past that I think other industries can expect to see other big changes, too.
Chiotakis: Big changes as in what?
Roth: Well, if we get a new stimulus package aimed at infrastructure, there could be, obviously that could benefit a lot of sectors. Energy companies and utilities could really suffer if there are tighter regulations. So there are all kinds of potential changes afoot.
Chiotakis: Marketplace's Alisa Roth, thanks for joining us from New York.
Roth: You're welcome.
Comments
Comment | Refresh
Post a Comment: Please be civil, brief and relevant.
Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. All comments are moderated. Marketplace reserves the right to edit any comments on this site and to read them on the air if they are extra-interesting. Please read the Comment Guidelines before posting.
You must be 13 or over to submit information to American Public Media. The information entered into this form will not be used to send unsolicited email and will not be sold to a third party. For more information see Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.