Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch told CNBC on Wednesday that an impeachment of President Donald Trump would "blow the market away."
US stock futures pointed to a lower opening Wednesday amid investor concern that Trump's reform agenda could be slowed down, added to disappointing U.S. economic data on Wednesday to hit the dollar and spur a pullback from richly valued stocks, Reuters reported.
Reports that Trump asked then-FBI Director James Comey to end a probe into his former national security adviser have raised questions over whether obstruction of justice charges could be filed against the president.
This follows a week of turmoil at the White House after Trump fired Comey and then discussed sensitive national security information about Islamic State with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Meanwhile, Trump's firing of James Comey as FBI director was a "rookie mistake," Welch told CNBC.
Welch told CNBC that he graded Trump a "D-minus" on his management of the White House.
Since Trump was so glowing in his praise when he kept the Obama-holdover Comey on after he took office, Trump should have "loved him on the way out" as much as he "loved him on the way in," said Welch, a longtime Republican supporter.
On the policy front and in his Cabinet and Supreme Court pick, Welch said he would give Trump an "A."
So far, broadly upbeat global growth has underpinned risky assets and supported the multi-year lows in measures of market volatility.
But the retreat in the dollar, which has now given up all the gains it made following Trump's presidential election win in November, and a pullback from record highs for world stocks points to investor unease about this week's headlines.
"The Trump issue seems to come in waves, and now we have another wave," said Hans Peterson, global head of asset allocation, at SEB Investments.
"I have been asked if he is going to be impeached. I think that is the type of discussion some (investors) are having," Peterson said, pointing out that institutional clients are turning cautious.
Newsmax Finance Insider Hans Parisis has wondered what investor reaction will be to the president's apparent recent policy reversals. "It's not an overstatement for me to say that as far as Donald Trump’s policies are concerned, we witnessed a breathtaking “flip-flop” performance," Parisis wrote in his exclusive Newsmax Finance commentary.
"This is worrisome for investors because it casts doubt on the actual process about just how Trump and team crafts overall policy," Parisis explained. "To me, Trump's decision-making process seems to be almost random," Parisis wrote.
"I think one of the big questions for financial markets and for long-term investors is: How do you handle these uncertainties about policy decisions? How do you cope and prepare as an investor amid this uncertainty? What happens if and when the next policy shock occurs?"
Meanwhile, some of the most respected economic gurus of modern times have urged patience with Trump.
Veteran financial guru and former Ronald Reagan adviser Larry Kudlow is urging any impatient investors to just give Trump a chance to fully enact his strategies to reform healthcare, spark economic growth and redesign the tax system.
After all, Trump has been in office a relatively short time and has inherited a mountain of problems from the past two decades. “He's trying to fix a lot of problems that have gone unfixed in the last 20 years,” Kudlow explained to CNBC.
Trump “still wants tax reform and healthcare reform. Those are big issues for him.” the Newsmax Finance Insider said.
Many other respected economic voices predict robust growth and additional stock-market gains if Trump is allowed to fully enact his blueprint to truly "Make America Great Again" without interruption and sabotage from Democrats and the liberal press.
David Horowitz, author of the best-selling book "Big Agenda: President Trump's Plan to Save America," told Newsmax TV that the stock market rally since Trump won the election has more room for gains as the president pushes his pro-business agenda.
“There's more upside. Starting from when he was president-elect he started this stock market boom,” he told Newsmax TV's “The Income Generation Show.”
“There will be corrections. There are going to be setbacks along the way like the healthcare which they hurried too fast. If you're looking over the long term of this administration I think the stock market is going to love Trump,” Horowitz said.
(Newsmax wires services contributed to this report).
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