A number of the money managers interviewed are looking at online betting websites
that allow participants to place wagers — offbeat as they may be — on whether Mr. Trump will be impeached before the end of his current term as one indicator of popular perception that could depress stocks in the coming months or years.
Some of those money managers are using options — trades
that give their initiator the right, but not the requirement, to buy or sell stocks in the future — to bet that the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index will fall 1 to 2 percent in the coming weeks.
Other investors, like Citadel, are awaiting further details on events, like a possible government crackdown on drug prices
that could hurt pharmaceutical stocks or the lifting of portions of Dodd-Frank that could help financial stocks, that could affect specific sectors.
By KATE KELLYMARCH 5, 2017
Stocks have marched higher and higher — up 5 percent since President Trump took
office six weeks ago — and the rally has become one of his favorite boasts.
The economic indicators are certainly heartening, the managers say,
and Mr. Trump’s ambitious policy agenda — which includes a market-friendly triad of top priorities in rolling back regulations on businesses, overhauling corporate taxes and spending $1 trillion in infrastructure projects — looks encouraging, too.
The idea of using a theoretical Trump impeachment as a reason to hedge investments is “the stupidest theory I’ve ever heard in my life,” said Peter DeCaprio,
a founder of the $900 million hedge fund company Crow Point Partners in Hingham, Mass., “because the odds of it happening are next to zero.”
He added: “This is why people hate Wall Street.