President Trump on Friday signed two executive orders designed to ultimately weaken, push back or replace financial regulations he sees as a burden to commerce and growth.
Doing so, however, would return the U.S. to a less regulated pre-financial crisis world, exposing investors and everyday Americans to the same risks that played out in destructive fashion in 2008 and 2009. The risks for the stock market in the long term are huge.
Specifically, the two regulations under attack are the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 and the fiduciary rule.
[See: 7 of the Best Stocks to Buy for 2017.]
Dodd-Frank, a lengthy set of regulations signed into law in response to the financial crisis, was designed to limit the risks taken by financial institutions and protect consumers in an effort to limit future crises and bailouts, and look out for the little guy.
The fiduciary rule, on the other hand, is a proposed rule that hasn’t yet gone into effect, giving Trump much more power to influence its eventual implementation. The fiduciary rule requires advisors and brokers to act in the best interests of their clients, essentially prohibiting them from selling self-enriching, higher-fee funds to clients with retirement accounts if they aren’t in the client’s best interest.
Shockingly, this isn’t a rule already.
While gutting the fiduciary rule would be a net negative for many Americans saving for retirement, it’s unclear if there would be any meaningful impact on overall market returns. Turning back the clock on Dodd-Frank however, could have seismic implications on the way the stock market acts in the short and long term.
While it’s unlikely sweeping changes could be made to Dodd-Frank in the very immediate future due to many of the rules already enacted, it could be weakened dramatically over time and much of the complicated process of repeal could be subverted and de facto accomplished by staff changes, who could then enact Trump’s own policies more closely.
Dodd-Frank is a notoriously expansive piece of legislation, but there are several key pieces.
The Volcker rule. “The Volcker Rule was brought into effect to essentially reenact the Glass-Steagall rule,” says Julian Rubenstein, CEO and president of American Asset Management, referring to regulation that was repealed in the late 1990s requiring commercial banks to separate from riskier, trade-happy investment banks.
A world without Glass-Steagall or the Volcker rule is a flawed system, according to Rubinstein, who sees this less regulated world as a payday for big banks at the expense of the working class.
“They get to take all the risk with FDIC-insured money, and then, as we all learned in ’08, if they make a mistake you and I have to cover the losses. That’s a pretty good business model if you think about it, right?”
It certainly is, at least for the Wall Street banks. But not for average Joe taxpayer.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. While abolishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wouldn’t directly have an impact on long-term stock market returns, the indirect consequences for the market could be disastrous. The bureau, established through Dodd-Frank, describes itself as “a U.S. government agency that makes sure banks, lenders and other financial companies treat you fairly.”
It largely helps protect consumers from predatory schemes in credit cards, mortgages and student loans, among other areas.
So what sort of indirect consequences might result if the CFPB lost its power?
“We would probably see a rise in mortgages being written which are not really affordable to consumers or they may not really have the ability to pay,” says Nilesh Vaidya, senior vice president and head of banking and capital markets for Capgemini Financial Services. “More mortgages could be written, but the likelihood for delinquencies would increase as well.”
[See: 9 ETFs to Buy When the Market Tanks.]
If the main cause of the financial crisis were to be summed up into one word, it certainly could be: leverage. Homeowners used too much leverage when buying places that cost more than they could afford, and banks used too much leverage with risky financial instruments no one truly understood.
There’s speculation that Trump could immediately weaken this agency without officially scrapping it by simply replacing its current acting head.
The Financial Stability Oversight Council. The Financial Stability Oversight Council is another prominent spawn of Dodd-Frank, intended to review the systemically important financial institutions.
“If that were to go away, that would be a significant change in market structure. Institutions would be able to use much more leverage than they have today,” Vaidya says. “In some cases that would increase lending, in some cases it would increase more proprietary trading. Other instruments which have become a little less prevalent, like CDOs, would come back into the picture. That would be much more impactful to the market than even the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”
From one extreme to another. Even some proponents of less regulation, who generally feel less government restrictions on the financial industry will inevitably lead to higher revenue and earnings, believe there are dangers that should be acknowledged.
“We’ve seen times where financial institutions get a little carried away if some regulations aren’t in place, and we could be pushing ourselves toward another financial mania — which would certainly not be helpful for investors, consumers or banks themselves,” says Tom Stringfellow, president and chief investment officer at Frost Investment Advisors.
Stringfellow noted that JPMorgan Chase & Co, (ticker: JPM) stock was rallying on news of Friday’s executive orders. Shares finished the day with 3.1 percent gains.
“I suspect that there is a moment of investor euphoria taking place right now,” Stringfellow says.
The problem with euphoria in investing, however, is the unrealistic and often unsustainable expectations that come with it — and the ugly back-to-reality market corrections that inevitably follow.
While stripping the financial industry of some of its biggest legal safeguards in decades may indeed boost short-term market returns, instant gratification has never translated to long-term stability.
[Read: 5 Reasons Donald Trump’s Presidency Will Include a Recession.]
Introducing more leverage, less consumer protections, and greater leeway for banks to use the same shady, irresponsible tricks that sparked the Great Recession may be celebrated at first, it’s a proven recipe for disaster in the long run.
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Trump’s Executive Orders: What Would Repealing Dodd-Frank Mean for Stocks? originally appeared on usnews.com
