Here's what top money managers are anticipating in Trump's first 100 days — including for taxes, tariffs, and DOGE

• Wall Street is bracing for Donald Trump's first 100 days as he returns to the White House.
• Some experts are anticipating a slew of executive orders right from the start.
• Taxes, tariffs, deregulation, and the national deficit are top of mind for money managers.

The stock market rejoiced after the November election results as investors anticipated a Donald Trump presidency that would boost the economy. Now, investors are about to find out if Trump can deliver on his election promises as he kicks off his first 100 days in office on Monday.

The first 100 days are a critical period for Trump to lay the groundwork of his presidency. With a previous term already under his belt, Trump could get to work a lot faster the second time around, some experts believe.

"We have a feeling he's ready to hit the ground running," Mike Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at the wealth management firm Glenmede, said in an interview. "We wouldn't be surprised if he has a stack of executive orders ready to go on Day One."

Below, market experts shared what changes and policies they're anticipating once Trump takes office.

Tax cuts will depend on Congress

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump enacted during his first presidency, is approaching expiration at the end of 2025. With a narrow Republican majority in all three branches of government, chances are likely that large portions of the tax bill will be extended.

Trump campaigned on lowering the corporate tax rate to 15% for companies that manufacture their products domestically. If such a policy were to be enacted, primarily US-based areas of the market such as financials, industrials, and utilities would see a lift, according to James Ragan, director of wealth management research at D.A. Davidson.

Technology companies, especially software, could also benefit, Ragan added: "I think it'll be a little bit harder, like for a software company, to say where their product is produced, but I think they could argue that it's produced in the US if their labor is here."

George Cipolloni, portfolio manager at Penn Mutual Asset Management, thinks that Trump will have plenty of support for his policies. However, less tax revenue means fewer government funds — and Congress ultimately holds the purse strings.

"Especially early on, he's gonna have a lot of support for basically whatever he wants to do outside of tax cuts," Cipolloni said of Trump. "Tax cuts are tricky because he's going to have to find some spending to cut to offset that."

While tax cuts are generally good for economic growth, Cipolloni also warned of unintended consequences. "Pro-growth typically means more inflation," he said. Especially after a hot December CPI report, lower taxes could actually lead to climbing prices for consumers.

Tariff policy details matter

Tariffs can be levied through executive order, and a Republican Congress is unlikely to push back on them, so investors should get speedy answers to the details of Trump's protectionist policies.

Investors have been speculating if Trump's threats of an "external revenue service" are simply a negotiation tactic — or if he's ready to bring down the hammer with blanket tariffs on all imports.

The economic impact of Trump's tariff policy will vary wildly based on policy details: A blanket tariff of 10% on all imports would be much more inflationary than targeted tariffs on certain countries, according to Reynolds.

Clyde Rossouw, portfolio manager at asset manager Ninety One, thinks that Trump might not be bluffing. The Biden administration kept many of Trump's tariffs the first time around, Rossouw pointed out. "The new administration may be emboldened as there doesn't appear to be any tangible evidence of a negative impact on the US economy," he wrote in a recent note.

That's worrying for large parts of the market, as the AI-led rally that's driven stocks wouldn't be possible without the heavily international, primarily Taiwan-based, semiconductor industry, Roussouw warned.

Others are taking a more optimistic view.

"We wouldn't be surprised if he takes an incremental approach where he starts putting them on slowly," Reynolds said. "It's not far-fetched to think that the real estate guy from New York is trying to negotiate here a little bit and perhaps anchor expectations to the extremes."

Deregulation will boost markets

Wall Street is anticipating a wave of deregulation that'll boost multiple parts of the economy.

Trump has tapped Andrew Ferguson to replace Lina Khan for FTC chair, which could usher in a new era for Big Tech. Under Khan, the FTC has actively shut down proposed mergers and acquisitions and opened antitrust probes for some of the biggest companies in the market, such as Amazon and Microsoft.

"We've seen a pretty tepid M&A environment over the past couple of years, and one of the things that correlates most highly with M&A activity is CEO confidence," said Reynolds. "CEO confidence has been pretty bullish on the prospects for a Trump presidency, so we wouldn't be surprised at all to see M&A kind of pick back up."

Big Tech CEOs certainly seem excited, with executives like Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos, and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai all scheduling private meetings with Trump. There's a growing list of businesses and executives who've pledged to donate $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund.

Bryan Wong, portfolio manager at Osterweis Capital Management, sees a pro-deregulation administration as a tailwind for small-cap companies. He's hopeful that under Trump, there'll be an increase in small-cap IPOs.

Cipolloni agrees: "One of the reasons is that it costs a lot to be a public company," he said regarding the lack of small-cap IPOs in recent years. "Lower regulation would help the capital markets for sure."

DOGE might not be a crazy idea

An Elon Musk-run government advisory agency with a memecoin namesake isn't standard operating procedure, but some money managers are tentatively hopeful that DOGE could balance the budget.

The national debt is hovering around $36 trillion. "I think you talk to anybody, they'll admit that there's a lot of excess spending in the government," Ragan said.

Cipolloni drew comparisons between DOGE and previous budget-balancing initiatives like the Pay-As-You-Go policy under former Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, which required new budget proposals to be budget neutral or offset by cuts to existing programs.

Wong believes that DOGE could be an offset to pro-growth policies such as tax cuts and tariffs, both of which are likely to stoke inflation. Since Trump won the election in large part due to voters' displeasure towards elevated inflation, he'll probably want to use DOGE as a lever to reign in excessive government spending, which is also inflationary, Wong said.

"It's hard to cut government spending, but I think the efforts are genuine, and I think they know they have to deliver something," Wong told BI.

DOGE is in uncharted territory, but it has the potential to reign in the runaway deficit, Ragan believes.

"You could cut Social Security without cutting benefits if you can identify wasteful agencies or services that are being provided behind the scenes, jobs that are redundant," Ragan said. "There will be legal challenges along the way and it probably will get messy at times, but yes, I think there's the potential to cut wasteful spending without taking away benefits."