Zinger Key Points
- With VP Harris leading in polls, billionaires prep for Dem sweep, but these stocks are good plays in case Harris wins
- Get New Picks of the Market's Top Stocks
With Vice President Kamala Harris leading in polls of some key battleground states, billionaires and institutional heavyweights are preparing for a possible Democratic sweep in November.
Legendary investor Warren Buffett has dumped millions of shares of stocks over the last few months, and is now sitting on a record $276 billion in cash—and fellow billionaire Elon Musk says the timing is no coincidence.
"Buffett is already preparing for this outcome," Must tweeted on Thursday—and billionaire John Paulson, who made a fortune betting against the housing bubble in the mid-2000s, is saying he will also pull his money from markets if Harris wins.
Even so, a handful of stocks stand to benefit from a Democratic win in November, as a President Harris would pour hundreds of billions of dollars into clean energy and healthcare, for example.
Here are three top stocks to buy should Harris win on November 5.
Harris Hedge #1: UnitedHealth Corp. (UNH)
President Trump has promised to end Obamacare—the health reform law that made it mandatory for Americans over age 26 to purchase health insurance or paya fine, with few exceptions.
The law was a godsend for health insurer giant UnitedHealth Corp. (UNH), which surged 4,200% in the dozen years following the law's implementation.
A Harris victory would reassure markets that the federal government's flow of health care subsidies—which amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars over the years—will continue uninterrupted.
Of course, it's unlikely that UNH can repeat its feat of surging thousands of percent, as it's already a $500 billion health insurance giant. But UNH is already on many analysts' radar as a likely candidate to become the first trillion-dollar health insurer, and analysts are forecasting 21.8% growth for UNH this quarter alone.
Harris Hedge No. 2: NextEra Energy (NEE)
In 2022, Vice President Harris cast the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, a law pouring $369 billion into clean energy companies.
The law included hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits for clean energy companies—and The New York Times has singled out NextEra Energy (NEE) as perhaps the best-positioned to profit from this tidal wave of cash.
NEE recently raised its dividend by 10%, and now pays a yield of 2.5% that is almost double the S&P 500 average dividend yield. It has raised payouts once a year since 1994, providing investors with a growing income stream.
Harris Hedge No. 3: Realty Income Corp. (O)
In 2017, President Trump slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, and markets surged. But Kamala Harris has vowed to repeal the Trump tax cuts, which would drag down most stocks as companies faced a higher tax rate.
That's not the case with Realty Income Corp. (O).
This real estate investment trust (REIT) company enjoys a tax structure that exempts it from paying federal tax on net taxable income that it sends to shareholders.
Because REITs must pay 90% of their net income back to shareholders, this means at least 90% of their net income would be effectively shielded from the higher tax rate—making them more resilient if the repealing of the Trump tax cuts causes a selloff in markets. Realty Income pays a 5.5% yield as of this writing—more than 3x as high as the average S&P 500 company's dividend yield. It has also grown its monthly payouts for over a decade.
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