"White House picks winners and losers in the marketplace": who benefits from Trump's decisions?

Tom Lee, head of research at analyst firm Fundstrat, advises investors to watch the White House's actions more closely to see which sectors will outperform the market. Despite the fact that incoming macro data so far point to soft U.S. monetary policy conditions, "the main intrigue is that Washington is picking winners and losers," Lee noted in a video message to Fundstrat clients, MarketWatch writes.

Tom Lee highlights stocks of real estate developers and companies linked to the housing market among the "winners" from US President Donald Trump's administration's latest decisions in 2026. US President Donald Trump has been stepping up his rhetoric on housing affordability for Americans. In January, he announced his intention to limit purchases of private homes by institutional investors, as well as his desire to achieve a reduction in mortgage rates through large-scale bond purchases. Against this background, investors are actively investing in the securities of the sector of development and real estate, including the retailer of home goods Wayfair, whose shares have added about 14% since the beginning of January, MarketWatch specifies .

In 2026, Lee is also betting on energy and commodities, the "Magnificent Seven" technology stocks and cryptocurrencies - bitcoin and Ethereum (Lee himself is chairman of an Ethereum treasury company called BitMine Immersion Technologies, MarketWatch specifies). In addition, Lee is attracted to the industrial sector. The expert also bets on small-capitalization companies.

Lee listed credit card companies as "losers." Shares of financial institutions Capital One, Synchrony Financial, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America fell on Jan. 12 after Trump called for a 10 percent annual ceiling on interest rates on credit card debt. "The logic is clear: lower the cost of borrowing for customers," Lee said. He added that banks will have to be extra careful with credit risk, which means only the most reliable customers will get loans. "It's essentially a credit squeeze," Li said.

Among other "losers" as a result of the Trump administration's decisions, Lee named institutional mortgage buyers and the Fed, which was under political pressure from the White House after the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into the head of the U.S. central bank Jerome Powell. According to the analyst, the Fed's independence is crucial, so investors should wait to see how the standoff between Trump and Powell unfolds.

"Keep in mind: it's hard to buy what Washington considers a 'loser'. Last year, the authorities put healthcare and consulting as 'losers', and those stocks had a very tough time," he emphasized.

Health care and consulting companies were under pressure from the White House in 2025 as they endured a challenging period amid the Trump administration's initiatives to cut government spending, renegotiate contracts and strengthen price controls. For example, the S&P 500 Health Care sector S&P 500 fell more than 8% at one point during 2025 before returning to growth at the end of the year.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor