During this past presidential campaign, Republicans promised to impeach Hilary Clinton as soon as she took office.
Democrats made a similar promise regarding President Donald Trump.
And it looks like they’re trying to make good on their promise.
In a recent poll released this month by Monmouth University, more Americans think that President Trump should be impeached than the amount who thought President Nixon should have been impeached during his second term.
To be exact, 41% of Americans strongly believe that President Trump “should be impeached and compelled to leave the presidency,” versus the 53% who don’t.
Every day, some conspiracy theory regarding the president is broadcasted on every news outlet imaginable, ever increasing President Trump’s odds of impeachment.
But after an impeachment, very rarely do things get better.
Multiple examples in other countries, especially South America, prove this to be true.
Especially in our case today as we’re seeing radical partisanship, public dissatisfaction, and perceived poor government performance.
These beliefs fuel dissatisfaction with the government in general, and so, public trust declines.
But impeaching President Trump won’t do anything to restore the rule of law.
However, if it were to happen, what would that mean for the future of your individual financial security?
Potential Reasons for Impeachment
As more information about our president’s actions is brought to light, his motives certainly appear questionable.
President Trump was already unpopular when he came into office and has been hounded with investigations into whether his campaign colluded with the Russian government for months.
To go along with that, accusations that he fired former FBI Director James Comey in order to influence the Russian probe have been circulating for weeks.
Recently unveiled information about the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr.’s, previously undisclosed meeting with a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hilary Clinton has also raised a red flag.
The 2016 secret meeting (held in Trump Tower) included Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., and the Russian lawyer.
The president’s eldest son had said nothing of this meeting. But he later tweeted a chain of emails that showed he believed he was meeting with a Russian government official who had obtained incriminating evidence against Clinton as part of a Russian state-sponsored campaign to help his father win the U.S. presidency.
Congressman Al Green from Texas teamed up with Congressman Brad Sherman of California to file an article of impeachment against the president, should the House Judiciary Committee choose not to act on the ones already filed that allege President Trump obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey.
The president deemed the dismissal of the director necessary, classifying his actions as “high crimes and misdemeanors” amid the FBI’s investigation into the alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russian election meddling.
All this information has inflamed the scandal surrounding President Trump and Russia. And the information has also crumbled the foundation of the American people’s trust, which increases the president’s odds of being impeached even more.
Impeachment Could Put Your Financial Security at Risk
Successful investors make their money from preparing for scenarios without letting their politics cloud their judgments.
That’s especially difficult in these hyper-partisan times.
So, how would your investment portfolio be affected if President Trump were impeached?
First of all, if there’s one thing that stock markets hate most of all, it’s uncertainty.
U.S. stock markets could very well be ready for a fall, anyway, as they’ve been setting new record highs on a regular basis, steadily running up for the past few years.
Most valuations are very high, and experts are getting pretty nervous about an impending correction.
Most of the increases in stock prices that we’ve seen lately can be attributed to investors betting on President Trump’s policies, especially deregulation and tax cuts.
Since President Trump’s election back in November, the markets have responded with a 14% gain, due to investors betting on the enactment of the president’s pro-business agendas.
With the Trump presidency at risk, those policies are now at risk and so is stock security.
In mid-May, investors experienced just an inkling of the havoc that a White House-related bombshell could wreak on the markets.
The Dow plunged nearly 400 points following the reports of President Trump allegedly “persuading” FBI Director James Comey (whom he later fired) to shut down an investigation of his former national security advisor and the special counsel named to oversee the investigation into Russian ties to President Trump’s campaign.
Although the markets made a quick recovery, both investors and experts alike worry that something more severe than just D.C.-related drama could eventually devastate Wall Street.
The latest development regarding Donald Trump Jr. releasing emails clearly shows that he was aware of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election.
This is strong evidence that counters both the president’s and his eldest son’s prior assertions.
The release of Trump Jr.’s emails wasn’t a big move, nor did it last very long. But it was a strong enough reminder that the markets haven’t gone completely deaf to politics.
After the emails were released, the Dow erased 160 points in just 20 minutes, and the volumes of the most widely traded S&P 500 futures tripled as the actualization of a Russian-backed election sank in with investors.
Although the most recent email-related damage amounted to only a fraction of the damage caused by the Comey meltdown in May, it does signal that the markets react to the news.
If U.S. markets tank in response to President Trump’s impeachment, that could also obliterate markets in the rest of the world, which would cause a disastrous snowball effect.
The numerous hardworking Americans (with money in retirement pensions and the like) would also suffer if the president were removed from office.
If President Trump were forced into an “early retirement,” everyone else might have to work even longer before they could have access to theirs.
It’s difficult to predict what might happen next. There are way too many possible outcomes and permutations at play.
But what’s to say that there isn’t a point at which the crisis enveloping the White House won’t spark lasting turmoil in the financial markets?
The Bottom Line
Extrapolating Watergate-era markets to compare them to President Trump’s current situation is highly inaccurate and does not make a relative comparison by any means.
Chief Investment Strategist Sam Stovall of investment research firm CFRA has this to say about the comparability of the two widely circulated impeachment scandals:
Comparing today with 1974 is not apples to apples, or even oranges to tangerines. It’s apples to, I don’t know, snow cones…
So, what else can be done to clean up politics?
Demanding more transparency from those in power can sometimes help get to the root of the problem.
Ultimately, using legal channels to improve political institutions, rather than focusing on just one bad apple, could enhance the rule of law.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s still too soon to know what might happen next.
The smartest thing to do is to keep a close eye on everything that’s happening in Washington, D.C., in order to protect your investments on Wall Street.
That’s all for now.
Until next time,
John Peterson
Pro Trader Today