Every brokerage house is coming out with its list of “Trump trades”, now that America’s triumphant caudillo is deemed a shoo-in for a second presidency.

So here are a few of mine for the mix: short Europe, with conviction; short oil; short peace; and take a counter-consensus flutter on a global deflationary bust.

Needless to say, it is impossible to “price” the geopolitical smash-up that lies ahead, or to take the measure of a Trump II regime pre-armed with Project 2025, plotting his march through America’s economic, judicial, diplomatic and military institutions.

Global markets are bracing for the worst amid the prospect of Trump’s second presidency.Credit: AP

Anybody who listened to the ice-cold comments of Senator J.D. Vance at the Munich Security Conference this year knows that Trump has picked a running mate who wishes to ratify Vladimir Putin’s conquests.

The stated aim may be to free America’s stretched military resources for the larger showdown with China, but it looks more like cover for ideological preference and Lindbergh isolationism. Trump himself has just invited China’s Xi Jinping to take Taiwan if he wants, an invitation that will no doubt be accepted.

In his interview with Bloomberg, Trump said he was “very cool to the idea of the US sort of standing up for and protecting Taiwan”, adding that the island “took all of our chip business. Why are we doing this?“.

How would one have “priced” global markets in 1912 or 1937, when the writing already was on the wall, but nothing was predetermined, and one could still hope? Worth pondering.

How would one have ‘priced’ global markets in 1912 or 1937, when the writing already was on the wall, but nothing was predetermined, and one could still hope? Worth pondering.

What we know........

© The Age