Stephen Culp and Suzanne McGee
4 min read
By Stephen Culp and Suzanne McGee
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Four months into President Donald Trump's second term, market observers have taken a cue from his fondness for condensing slogans into catchy acronyms like MAGA, DOGE and MAHA, and devised a few of their own that have been spreading across trading desks.
Even those acronyms that do not directly reflect a specific trading strategy, still capture factors that traders say are important in Trump-era markets, such as volatility and uncertainty, that investors need to consider when making decisions.
Some of the new labels are associated with investment strategies that aimed to capitalized on Trump's economic and trade polices, and international relations goals. Others riff off economic implications or his abrupt U-turns as markets and trade partners react to his proposals.
The "Trump Trade" that played on the Make America Great Again theme in the wake of his November election victory and January inauguration, and contributed to record highs on Wall Street in February, is hardly discussed now that stocks, the dollar and Treasury bonds have succumbed to worries about his tariff polices.
"Post the election, we heard a lot about YOLO (You Only Live Once), which seemed to promote taking outsize risks in a concentrated investment theme," Art Hogan, strategist at B. Riley Wealth, said.
YOLO, is an acronym used to describe the tendency that was part of that Trump trade to chase high momentum strategies such as cryptocurrency. "While the term YOLO was popular for a period of time, it goes against all traditional advice," Hogan said.
Here are of few more acronyms that have gotten play in the investment world in recent weeks:
** TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) - This one coined by a Financial Times columnist, has been used as a way to describe Trump's to-ing and fro-ing on tariffs in the wake of his April 2 "Liberation Day" speech. When asked about TACO in a recent press conference, the president lashed out, calling the question "nasty"
"Where we end up might not be too far from what he promised on the campaign trail. So, does he always chicken out? I wouldn't go as far as to say that," said Christian DiClementi, fixed income portfolio manager at AllianceBernstein.
"I think that he wants to rebalance the economy without pushing it off a cliff. And we're watching that being executed in real time. I think some of the ideas are thought out and some of them change on the fly."
** MEGA (Make Europe Great Again) - Mega first coined last year to address European competitiveness, resurfaced this Spring as a way to describe the flurry of investor interest in and flows into European markets. MEGA hats, spoofing their MAGA counterparts, are easily purchased online It's been revived by investors and traders in light of the outperformance European stocks in the immediate aftermath of Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs bombshell.
