Here’s why I don’t see the stock market tanking in the next 3-4 years (practical/behavioral reasons)

I don’t see it happening under this administration – and I’m a Moderate btw so I have no dog in a political fight.  This is not a political post but a behavioral one.  In his last administration, Trump bragged about things like “People’s 401K’s have never been higher” etc…and he was right to an extent.  But in fairness, my 401K and investments were also doing great under the previous administration as well.  So to the behavioral part: in service of his colossal ego only, Trump will not let the economy nor the markets fail.  I think things like tariffs are mostly grandstanding, and once he gets a real indication that they are becoming deleterious to companies and the market - and his constituents start barking about their investments, 401K’s, and prices of goods, he will pull back on such measures.  Of course, he will not admit he was wrong on these steps  – but rather spin it whereby he got what he wanted, i.e. ”I’m pulling back the tariff %’s because (X) country has made concessions to the U.S. to create a more balanced trading field,” etc… Quite simply, his ego is too fragile to let things go badly and he can’t stand the thought of failing – especially when he was so critical of the previous administration for things like inflation, etc.

Also Republicans (and Trump) are notorious De-regulators so I see companies eventually being mostly optimistic once we get out of this initial downturn.  Unfortunately, the Walmart’s of the world tend to temporarily drive market sentiment.  But I am not worried in the long-run once this initial period of bluster and uncertainty go away.

 Would welcome others’ thoughts.