The electoral victory of the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, in the United States, against the Democrat Kamala Harris, has caused an earthquake in the stock markets around the world with the Spanish stock market among the collateral victims. The Ibex 35, the national reference, suffered a fall of 3.1% after the opening of Wall Street, and fell below 11,400 points. The selective is weighed down by the collapse of banking securities, which are experiencing a dark day with declines ranging from 7% for Banco Sabadell to 2.1% for Bankinter.
The market has interpreted the magnate’s return to the White House as a negative scenario for Europe, which will be detrimental to growth. “The main lesson is that the European Central Bank (ECB) will have to accelerate the cuts,” comments the chief economist of AXA IM, Gilles Moëc, who sees tariff policy as one of the main threats for the Old Continent. “A 10% tariff on European products is probably manageable, but a 60% tariff on Chinese products could be very disruptive, either because it could reduce Chinese demand or incentivize Chinese producers to compete more fiercely with European suppliers abroad. of the US market,” he points out.
The increase in uncertainty about the monetary policy that Christine Lagarde will follow after executing three interest rate cuts, reaching the reference rate at 3.25%, reduces the lack of clarity about the agency’s next movements. After the drop in mid-October, the forecast included another cut in the same proportion for the December meeting in the heat of controlled inflation. Now the fear of the return of protectionism stands as a threat to price stability in the community area.
“The main medium-term effect on the euro zone is trade. Under Trump, a blanket 10% tariff on imports would be a game-changer that would add to the fiscal and structural headwinds for activity in the region and could cut at least 0.2 percentage points from our GDP growth forecast of 1.0% for 2025”, highlight Generali Investment analysts, who warn of certain volatility due to the uncertain roadmap drawn for the ECB. in 2025.
This situation directly exposes Spanish banks, which are suffering a strong correction in the stock market. The aforementioned Catalan entity bears the brunt, along with BBVA, on which investors decide to correct profits and push it to experience a brake of almost 7%. Banco Santander, another of the heavyweights in the index, drops almost 5%, in line with Unicaja, while in CaixaBank it reaches 4.18% and in Bankinter it softens to 2.2%. Some of the largest Spanish banks have a significant exposure to Mexico, precisely one of the regions that will be most affected by this electoral result.