If you didn’t have time to watch the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden last night you could have just watched the share price of a little-known Chinese company called Wisesoft instead. Its Chinese name “Chuan Da Zhi Sheng” sounds very like “Trump Wins Big” in Mandarin, and local speculators piled in as it became clear just how catastrophically the incumbent had performed. In reality, that verdict is going to be repeated when Wall Street opens later today. Investors, though, have already made up their minds. Trump is going to win, and nothing can change that now.
It was probably the most painful TV debate any of us have ever watched. A clearly unwell President Biden stumbled through his lines, hardly even able to deliver a coherent sentence. Even Trump, not a man noted for his kindness, looked sympathetic, although understandably that did not stop him from going in for the kill. By the time the debate ended, the election was effectively over. Biden is clearly in no fit state to campaign, and the longer he stumbles on the worse it will get, both for him personally, and for the party he leads.
Sure, the Democrats will scramble around for an alternative. The stage is set for a billionaire to stage a last-minute coup, with JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, or the former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg the most likely candidates to seize the Democratic nomination at the last moment. After all, it will take big bucks to replace the candidate at this late stage in the process, and both men can supply the necessary money. Even so, for all the speculation, it is very hard to see it happening. There is no established mechanism in place for replacing a candidate at the last moment, nor is there any consensus on who should take the nomination. A long, messy fight will only leave the party in even more trouble.
One point is clear. Trump was already ahead in the polls. He will beat Biden on this form, and he will almost certainly beat anyone who is drafted in at the last moment to replace a faltering opponent. Oil and gas and manufacturing shares are all likely to soar on the prospect of the White House coming back under the control of candidate who will support energy production, impose tariffs on foreign goods, and cut corporate taxes again, while the “green energy” conglomerates that benefitted from Biden’s subsidies will be in big trouble. The markets are already buying up all the assets that will benefit from a Trump victory in November — as far as investors can see the election has already been decided.
This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.
