(C) Common Dreams
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The Markets Cheer Trump’s Treasury Pick, Scott Bessent [1]
['Andrew Ross Sorkin', 'Ravi Mattu', 'Bernhard Warner', 'Sarah Kessler', 'Michael J. De La Merced', 'Lauren Hirsch']
Date: 2024-11-25
A steady hand
Stocks and bonds are rising on Monday, and the dollar is down. On the first trading day since Donald Trump chose the billionaire financier Scott Bessent as his pick for Treasury secretary, investors seem to be signaling they like the choice.
The hedge fund mogul is seen as a steady hand to enact the president-elect’s economic vision — and, just as important, oversee the $28 trillion Treasuries market. “Investors prefer orthodoxy, predictability, and coherence from economic policy; there were fears that some of the candidates may not possess those attributes. Bessent does,” Paul Donovan, chief economist of UBS Global Wealth Management, wrote in a research note on Monday.
The Key Square Group founder overcame serious opposition from some in Trump’s inner circle. Elon Musk derided Bessent as a “business-as-usual choice” and threw his weight behind Howard Lutnick, the C.E.O. of Cantor Fitzgerald. When Trump tapped Lutnick to lead the Commerce Department instead, Bessent was left to fight it out against the likes of Marc Rowan, the boss of Apollo Global Management, the private equity giant.
Bessent won a “knife fight” to get the nod. On Wall Street, a document was circulated suggesting that his Key Square hedge fund had underperformed the booming markets. Bessent’s ascent is notable in that he doesn’t appear to have been on Trump’s radar during his first administration.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/25/business/dealbook/markets-trump-treasury-bessent.html
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