(MarketWatch) Last week, Leon Cooperman, the billionaire boss at Omega Advisors, joked to a crowd at the Delivering Alpha conference in New York that if Elizabeth Warren were to win the presidency, the stock market might not even open.
Before that, CNBC host Jim Cramer talked about how the prospect of such an anti–bank candidate in the White House is stoking fear across the industry. “When you get off the desk and talk to executives, they’re more fearful of her winning,” he said, adding that he’s been hearing the phrase, “She’s got to be stopped,” bouncing around Wall Street since her rise in the polls.
It could be that the backlash is gaining momentum, as Warren’s candidacy does likewise. According to CNBC, several high-dollar Democratic donors and fundraisers on Wall Street say they may end up backing Donald Trump in 2020:
‘You’re in a box because, you’re a Democrat and you’re thinking, “I want to help the party, but she’s going to hurt me, so I’m going to help President Trump.”’
That quote, CNBC reported, is from a senior private-equity executive — just one of many sources said to have cited “widely shared” concerns.
The fear, if the account is accurate, stems from Warren’s focus on curbing the power and influence of big banks, whether via a wealth tax or holding private-equity firms responsible for debts and pensions at the companies they buy.
Another source from one of the nation’s biggest banks is quoted as having told CNBC that her policies could be worse than Obama’s when it comes to Wall Street. “They will not support her,” that source reportedly said. “It would be like shutting down their industry.”
Does this bother Warren? It doesn't seem like it.
As for Trump, he reiterated on Thursday his stance that anybody other than him at the helm of this country would mean trouble for investors:
"If they actually did this the markets would crash. Do you think it was luck that got us to the best Stock Market and Economy in our history. It wasn’t!" He wrote on Twitter in response to a comment on the market drop after the announcement of his impeachment investigation.
No crash yet, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average was trading lower as the prospect of his impeachment hovers over Wall Street.
