The deal-making vibes on Wall Street were strong after the author of “The Art of the Deal” won his bid to return to the White House. Shares of major asset managers Apollo Global, KKR, and Blackstone climbed 9.7%, 9.5%, and 4%, respectively, on Wednesday. 

Considering Trump’s promises to cut red tape and ease antitrust pressure on mergers and acquisitions, that may not sound very surprising, but the story is more complex. 

Merger Purger or Urger?

While the value of global aggregate M&A rose 10% to $1.6 trillion in the first nine months of this year, according to the Boston Consulting Group, deal activity paled compared to the zero-interest days of 2021, which saw $3.3 trillion in its first three quarters.

Trump’s commitment to less regulation — coupled with a promise to lower corporate taxes — is the stuff of asset management dreams. “My sense is that M&A will have a big uptick,” Warner Music Group chair Michael Lynton told CNBC Wednesday. “Given what I’ve heard from this new administration, there’ll probably be a lot less scrutiny over those matters and so as a result there’ll be a lot more M&A.”

On the other hand, Trump’s saber-rattling about tariffs and trade wars is vexing for asset managers and dealmakers — not to mention the M&A bankers and lawyers, who are like symbiotic organisms that feed off deals. This suggests a mixed future:

• Lucinda Guthrie, head of financial data intelligence platform Mergermarket, told Reuters that “2025 could be a breakout year for M&A, especially in industries heavily influenced by capital gains tax or regulatory uncertainty.” Lynton, the WMG chair, said the media sector in particular could benefit from Trump’s light touch on domestic economic activity “because there needs to be consolidation.”
• But Trump’s first administration intervened in some deals, failing to block AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner and successfully stopping Broadcom’s attempt to acquire Qualcomm, citing national security. His continued emphasis on national security could also thwart cross-border deals.

Real-Time Impact: Shares of Kroger and Albertsons, which are set to merge, were up 4.2% and 1.6%, respectively, on Wednesday, perhaps a wink from markets that they’re confident the deal will go through. On the other hand, steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs rose a whopping 20%, likely because investors think it has a better chance of acquiring leading rival U.S. Steel — that’s because Trump has pledged to block Japan-based Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of the company.

Things could get slightly tricky for the biggest beneficiary of the AI boom next year, but that’s not to say the chips are down for Nvidia.

On Tuesday, as America headed to the polls, the semiconductor giant managed to once again top Apple and become the world’s most valuable company.

Freezing Out China

Still, President-elect Trump’s re-ascension to the White House is likely to come with a crackdown on China export controls, Keegan McBride, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a lecturer at the Oxford Internet Institute, told The Daily Upside. The Biden administration had already put export limitations in place, but Trump has signaled he will step up enforcement and possibly load some new tariffs on top, further ruffling up supply chains.

Nvidia’s last quarterly earnings report showed just over 12% of its revenue comes from China, so it’s sure to have an impact — but it’ll hit every other semiconductor company just as hard:

• In the same period last year, 20% of Nvidia’s revenue came from China, so it has begun to wean off the market there.
• Far more exposed is Qualcomm, which said in its most recent quarterly report that a lot of its revenue is “concentrated in China.” Intel also drew 27% of its 2023 revenue from China.

More of the Same: Exactly how rigorously export controls are enforced is really the only difference between the upcoming and the outgoing administrations, McBride said. “The only difference is Trump thinks we need to be tougher, and he’s going to be tougher,” said McBride, adding that government agencies including the Bureau of Industry and Security will take on new significance. US policy on AI was already to build out domestic supply chains and attain dominance globally, and that policy is likely to continue. “Tech policy is basically going to be: beat China, build up [the] US, make sure the world uses US stuff,” McBride said, adding that taking on China is one of the biggest (only?) areas of bipartisan agreement in US politics at the moment. 

You bet your bottom Satoshi they’re happy. 

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election appears likely to send the cryptocurrency industry into a bonafide golden era. That’s big news for bitcoin holders, and at least one analyst sees a clear roadmap for the world’s preeminent crypto. 

All the Digital Money in the World

Make no mistake: 2024 marked the first true crypto election in American history. Pro-crypto PACs and affiliated groups raised more than $245 million this election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data. That’s more than any other industry this year — and, at least in late August, accounted for nearly half of all corporate spending this election, according to corporate influence watchdog Public Citizen. (For reference: 17% of US adults say they have invested in, traded or used cryptocurrency, per Pew Research.) In fact, in the post-Citizens United era, only the fossil fuel industry has given more money to politics than crypto, Public Citizen found. Translation: The nascent industry is already an unparalleled political behemoth. 

While crypto industry money flowed to candidates on both sides of the aisle, funds from the three predominant crypto industry PACs went mostly to Republicans, according to the watchdog OpenSecrets. With the victors headed toward power, it’s safe to assume that the crypto industry will see progress on many of its policy goals:

• Chief among the crypto industry’s asks is a far lighter regulatory touch from its overseer, with aims to migrate government oversight from the Securities and Exchange Commission to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
• Trump, for his part, has shifted gears since claiming bitcoin was “based on thin air” in his first term, promising to oust SEC Commissioner Gary Gensler and make America “the crypto capital of the planet.” He’s also mentioned plans to amass a “strategic bitcoin reserve.”

Up, Up, and Away: Naturally, that’s all very good for bitcoin, which soared 9% overnight Tuesday to a new record of $75,361, according to CoinMarketCap, and passed Meta to become the world’s ninth-largest asset by market cap. Analysts at Bernstein Group project it could reach $90,000 by the end of the year, and $200,000 by the end of 2025.