There’s one key reason the U.S. stock market rallied after this month’s presidential election, and it wasn’t necessarily because of the outcome, according to Dan Clifton of Strategas. “What we saw was that the market was pricing in a 50-50 election. [Investors] didn’t know who was going to win,” Clifton, the firm’s head of Washington policy research, told CNBC’s Dominic Chu in this special Pro Talks discussion available to all readers. “I think you saw a rally, not because one party won or one party lost, but because the market was concerned we weren’t going to know who the winner was for one week or two weeks, given the close nature of the race.” Instead, “we had it very clear … we knew [President-elect Donald Trump] was going to win,” he said. (Pro subscribers can watch the full interview here .) In this free portion of the latest CNBC Pro Talks, Clifton talks about: Why he thinks this was the “most investable election of our lifetime” How the market, economic and geopolitical landscape could change in a second Trump administration The potential for government gridlock — even after Republicans secured narrow majorities in both the House and Senate, and what it could mean for stocks Subscribe to CNBC Pro for exclusive insights and analysis, and live business day programming from around the world.
