As America prepares for midterm elections in November, pinpointing the moment when President Donald Trump started to turn into a lame duck is becoming a popular parlour game.
The stock market, however, has a clear answer: the peak of Trump's popularity was much earlier, in mid-2025, when the share prices of companies associated with his presidency hit a high.
Some of the picks that touched on the big themes of Trump's campaign, such as his bullying of NATO freeloaders and carbon-cuddling, are doing relatively well.
However, other Trump trades have performed poorly, including tariffs, which failed to benefit domestic American manufacturers, and private-prison operators, which saw less than expected returns from mass deportations.
The clear losers include Rumble, a right-wing social network, and Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs Truth Social and has dabbled in cryptocurrencies and nuclear fusion.
The Trump trade that looms over all others is the bet that American Treasury bonds would fall in price and yields would jump, which has been partially fulfilled by the energy shock from the Iran war.
