NYSE President: Tariffs Would Not Be Welcome
NYSE President Tom Farley on President-elect Donald Trump's impact on business, the outlook for IPOs and the state of the markets.
After (OTC:AXIM) saving about 1,000 jobs in Indiana, President-elect Trump has said U.S. companies would face a 35% tax if they move jobs overseas. However, Tom Farley, President of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:ICE), says the plan could backfire for investors.
“This idea of tariffs on imports would clearly not be welcome,” he said during an interview with the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo. “But when you look at the tax plan as a whole, it’s more welcome. There’s still a sense of optimism that some of these more concerning ideas with respect to trade won’t come to fruition.”
Trump’s Secretary of Commerce pick, Wilbur Ross, during an interview on Mornings with Maria, said the tariff would be used as a tool for companies to give America a second look. Although Farley agrees, he said, CEOs would be wary.
“We are going to have to work through the details. We have 500 consumer companies… and so clearly any taxes with respect to imports and exports will be looked at carefully,” he said.
So far, investors are enthusiastic over President-elect Donald Trump and his ideas. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq are all hitting fresh record highs. However, Farley is worried about the IPO market, which is on track to end 2016 as the slowest year since 2012.
“I feel like its ground-hog day for me which gives me some concern. I came into this year at the NYSE with lots of IPOs lined up. This was going to be a big year, it was going to be just like 2014 when we had 130 IPOs -- we raised $30 billion. And those first two weeks of the year really leveled the IPO calendar for the first 6-months,” he said.
Despite this, he is optimistic about 2017, “the IPO market is not dead” he said.