Political elections and market reactions: The ‘Trump effect’ on green stocks

• Donald Trump's election threatens the fight against climate change; • How did the U.S. stock market react to the latest presidential elections?; • We highlight a heterogeneous investor response across sectors; • We highlight positive reactions in Energy, Financials and Industrials sectors; • Firms with better environmental scores performed worse. The election of Donald Trump as the 45 th president of the United States and his sceptical positions on climate threaten the fight against climate change, potentially weakening investors’ green concerns. Through an event study approach, we aim to analyse the reaction of the U.S. stock market to the latest presidential election, exploring the investors’ reactions across sectors. We find a strong heterogeneous reaction across sectors. Moreover, we show that the worst performance in the short period is attributable to companies with better performance on environmental issues, which could mean an adjustment of investors’ assessment criteria in anticipation of President Trump's anti-climate policies, reduced transition risk for "brown" firms and lower benefits for firms excelling in environmental performance.