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Briefing highlights

  • A new investing tool: Trump on Twitter
  • Big U.S. banks start to roll out results

Following Trump

It seems investors have a new tool at their disposal: Donald Trump’s Twitter feed.

The president-elect has named several companies in tweets since he won the U.S. election, setting a new approach along the lines of “Trump’s Twitter’s governance,” as the executive director of macro strategy at CIBC World Markets put it.

“Hitherto, we’ve rarely seen a U.S. president’s Twitter account yield anything more than a minuscule amount of influence on market activity,” said Bipan Rai.

“But since the election, both Ford and Toyota’s shares have traded off Trump’s shoot-from-the hip approach to tweeting,” he added in a research note this week.

“Trump’s approach to communicating these messages has surely appealed to his core base of supporters with the implied message that manufacturing jobs lost to other countries will return with some coercion and well-timed tweets.

Mr. Rai sees some “structural problems” with Mr. Trump’s logic on bringing back such jobs, everything from potential retaliation from U.S. trading partners to the fact that manufacturers are becoming more productive, thus shedding jobs.

Regardless of faulty logic, we can expect the president-elect to continue flexing his fingers on his Twitter account.

Here’s a sample of what we’ve seen to date:

Fiat Chrysler

Tweeted: Jan. 9, 2017, 9:14 a.m.

@realDonaldTrump: It's finally happening - Fiat Chrysler just announced plans to invest $1BILLION in Michigan and Ohio plants, adding 2000 jobs. This after...Ford said last week that it will expand in Michigan and U.S. instead of building a BILLION dollar plant in Mexico. Thank you Ford & Fiat C!

Toyota

Tweeted: Jan. 5, 2017, 1:14p.m.

@realDonaldTrump: Toyota Motor said will build a new plant in Baja, Mexico, to build Corolla cars for U.S. NO WAY! Build plant in U.S. or pay big border tax.

General Motors

Tweeted: Jan. 3, 2017, 8:30 a.m.

@realDonaldTrump: General Motors is sending Mexican made model of Chevy Cruze to U.S. car dealers-tax free across border. Make in U.S.A.or pay big border tax!

Lockheed Martin

Tweeted: Dec. 12, 2016, 8:26 a.m.

@realDonaldTrump: The F-35 program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th.

Boeing

Tweeted: Dec. 6, 2016, 8:52 a.m.

@realDonaldTrump: Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!

Rexnord

Tweeted: Dec. 2, 2016, 10:06 p.m.

@realDonaldTrump: Rexnord of Indiana is moving to Mexico and rather viciously firing all of its 300 workers. This is happening all over our country. No more!

United Technologies

Tweeted: Nov. 24, 2016, 10:11 a.m.

@realDonaldTrump: I am working hard, even on Thanksgiving, trying to get Carrier A.C. Company to stay in the U.S. (Indiana). MAKING PROGRESS - Will know soon!

Ford

Tweeted: Nov. 17, 2016, 9:01 p.m.

@realDonaldTrump: Just got a call from my friend Bill Ford, Chairman of Ford, who advised me that he will be keeping the Lincoln plant in Kentucky - no Mexico

“Trump’s rhetoric and means of communication will continue to influence and markets will react,” said Mr. Rai.

“Traders and investors would be better served to keep a browser window open to track Trump tweets throughout the days as we enter a new normal for communicative policy.”

Mr. Trump, of course, has gone well beyond Twitter, taking on the major drug companies at this week’s news conference, for example.

And his style will continue to cause ripples in the markets, observers say.

Indeed, investors are coming to realize that Mr. Trump’s “propensity to shoot from the hip is likely to introduce a significant uncertain political element to the overall investment environment,” said CMC Markets chief analyst Michael Hewson.

“Investors don’t appear to have factored this into their investment scenarios given the gains seen since Nov. 8 and [Wednesday’s news conference] may well be the wake-up call many of them needed to start doing so,” he added.

“The Trump presidency is unlikely to be a one-way bet for stock markets.”

U.S. banks report