Roundtable

FOR SEVEN YEARS and counting, U.S. investors have lived in a financial paradox—fretting about slow economic growth while watching stock markets steadily climb

- Matt Heimer

. Will a new era of Republican rule add more fuel to the aging bull market, or generate a new kind of uncertainty? To seek clarity for 2017, Fortune convened our annual roundtable of market experts.

This year’s panel included Sarah Ketterer, CEO of Causeway Capital, a $44 billion asset-management firm; Sebastien Page, cohead of the asset-allocation group that sets strategy for $147 billion worth of target-date mutual funds at T. Rowe Price; Ann Winblad, cofounder and managing partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, a venture capital firm that has been investing in enterprise software firms since 1989; Krishna Memani, chief investment officer at Oppenheimer Funds, which has $219 billion under management; and Heather Kennedy Miner, global head of strategic advisory solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which manages over $1 trillion. Here, edited excerpts from their discussion.

MATT HEIMER Let’s start with what people on Wall Street have been calling the Trump Trade. Donald Trump surprised the pundits by winning the U.S. presidential election. Since then, stocks have been rallying and bond prices have fallen pretty sharply. What are investors anticipating and reacting to? 

KRISHNA MEMANI: These moves reflect a change in conversation and a change in the tone for the markets. For the longest time we have been talking about disinflation and deflation. All of a sudden somebody comes in and wants to reflate the world. And that has changed the mood for the markets.

HEIMER Heather, how is your team reacting?

HEATHER KENNEDY MINER: We are certainly looking at this as a regime change. I think that the equity market performance, postelection, really reflects an optimism about growth, particularly about earnings growth and lower taxes.