A Donald Trump election win is tipped to have far-reaching financial impacts.

Economists say the impact of Tuesday’s vote may be unprecedented and could affect everything from inflation and home loans to superannuation and shares.

Hillary Clinton has been the preferred choice of financial markets, which tumbled last week as her lead in the polls weakened. A win by Trump is tipped to trigger a global sharemarket sell-off — similar to June’s Brexit turmoil — because of fears his trade policies would damage global growth.

Darryl Gobbett, chief economist of advice and stockbroking firm Baillieu Holst, said Mr Trump’s economic vision “until now has been blurry at best”.

“The outlook for our interest rates, exchange rate, inflation and share market is heavily influenced by the policies and economic performance of the United States, whether we like it or not,” he said.

Mr Gobbett said global financial markets had figured that a Clinton win will would be “more of the same” economic, financial and trade policies.

“Financial markets don’t like surprises, uncertainty and volatility. In the event that Donald Trump snatches victory, I would expect equity markets and the Australian dollar would tumble at least for the short term.”

With Clinton seen as steady-as-she-goes, the US election impact on everyday Australians would come from a Trump win.

The consensus among financial experts appears to be that a Clinton victory will mean ‘more of the same’ for global financial markets, while a Trump win could usher in a period of instability. Picture: AFPSource:AFP

MORTGAGES

AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver said a Trump victory that sparked financial market weakness and stoked fears of a trade war would increase the chance of another Reserve Bank of Australia interest rate cut.

“Investors globally worry that if he does win, it will lead to slow economic growth and possibly a global recession, and our part of the world is exposed to that,” he said.

At least part of a RBA rate cut would flow through to mortgage interest rates.

SAVINGS

Rate cuts reduce the income paid on savings accounts, further eroding the income of retirees who have watched their returns slashed from 7 per cent to 3 per cent in recent years.

SHOPPING AND BILLS

A slower economy means lower inflation, so consumers will be happy about only small price rises — apart from energy and education bills, which never seem to slow.

SHARES

Dr Oliver said a Trump win could send share markets around the world tumbling between 5 and 10 per cent.

“A Trump win would be seen as a global economic shock and cause a loss of confidence in sharemarkets,” he said.

Mr Gobbett said both candidates favoured spending more on the military, which could create attractive investment opportunities in defence-rated companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and British Aerospace.

SUPERANNUATION

A majority of people’s super fund assets sit in Australian and international shares, so a shares slowdown will hit short-term super fund returns.

However, super is an investment over decades rather than weeks, and Dr Oliver said we could learn lessons from the kneejerk sell-off following the Britain’s Brexit vote in June.

“After a few days global markets moved on to focus on other things. So there is a danger in making too much of the US election,” he said.