The View | This one predictable trend will emerge from Donald Trump’s shock election victory

The American people have spoken and so have global markets. The former wanted a big change, while the latter are highly change averse, so global investors responded to the Trump triumph with a mighty vote of no confidence. What happens next is not clear.

However, we do know some things. First, markets always overreact to news they were not expecting and, my oh my, they sure were not expecting this result. Thus, share prices have plunged, there has been heavy selling of the US dollar etc. etc.

As night follows day, some of this panicky trading will reverse itself quite soon. Next up, at least according to the normal post-election script, there will be assurances that things said in the heat of the campaign were not quite as stated and vague statements about business as usual will be uttered.

The problem is that the Republican victory, sweeping not just the White House but also the two tiers of the legislature, has not gone according to the scripts carefully prepared by some of the “smartest” people in the investment world, let alone in the world of politics but then again that world is in a state of turmoil, producing shocks to the system not just in the United States but also in places like Britain where business as usual is no longer regarded as a desirable state of affairs by large swathes of the public.

However, before pressing the panic button it is useful to consider a wider perspective of what usually happens after elections, even those that produce major upsets.

The abiding truth about changes of government is that they have remarkably little impact on economic fundamentals. There is however an important caveat here because while governments find it remarkably hard to defy economic trends and improve the state of economies, there are salutary examples of governments managing to make things worse.