Justin Fox, Columnist

A President Trump Fiscal Stimulus Is Coming

Corporate profits are looking up, despite his volatility and vague policy proposals.

November 9, 2016 at 6:11 PM UTC

Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business, economics and other topics involving charts. A former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review, he is author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”

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Photographer: Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images

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As the first states were called Tuesday night and it became apparent that Hillary Clinton wasn't going to roll to victory over Donald Trump in the presidential election, U.S. stock index futures -- along with lots of other financial indicators around the world -- fell sharply. Which made sense: Markets expected an easy Clinton win; anything other than that represented uncertainty, and uncertainty is bad for risky financial assets.

This morning, though, the S&P 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average regained all that lost ground. And while I'm going to make no bets on where stocks end the day or the week, it did strike me during this rebound that it might be worth considering another important determinant of stock prices. You know, profits.