Democratic presidential hopeful Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks during the fourth Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season co-hosted by The New York Times and CNN at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio on October 15, 2019.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
U.S. presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren’s proposed wealth tax may not come to pass even if she’s elected, says prominent investor Mark Mobius who added that the markets would still fall anyway.
Warren, a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has made reining in the excesses of the wealthiest Americans and largest U.S. businesses a centerpiece of her campaign. Several well-known business executives and investors have criticized her plans, saying a Warren presidency would harm financial markets and the economy.
“I don’t think this wealth tax is going to be a big deal, frankly,” Mobius, founding partner of Mobius Capital Partners, told CNBC’s “Global Squawk” on Wednesday.
“Because if you look at who’s giving money to Warren: wealthy people. So, they realize that it’s talk,” he added. “At the end of the day, when it comes to actual action, it’s not going to be significant. I don’t see a wealth tax coming in.”
Warren’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside office hours.
Warren’s campaign
Market correction
Several investors have predicted major losses for U.S. stocks if Warren wins the presidential election next year. Mobius is no different, and has forecast a 20% to 25% decline on Warren’s election.
But Mobius explained on Wednesday that such a correction would not be triggered by Warren’s wealth tax. Instead, it would be because U.S. President Donald Trump lost his reelection bid, he said.
Markets “will definitely have a big correction simply because the Trump policies have been so beneficial to the economy that any change, people will begin to say: ‘let’s hold back and wait,’ and then you have a correction,” said the investor.
