What should investors consider as the U.S. transitions into new federal leadership this winter?

Scott Winslow, managing partner with the firm of Wilmington-based Nabell Winslow Investments & Wealth Management, is telling his clients to continue doing what they are already doing: making sound decisions for the long term.

“Regardless of the election, regardless of whether [investors] are left or right wing, [they need to remember] … we do have checks and balances,” he said. “This country has been through many changes over the years and has still thrived. It will continue to do so, in my opinion.”

Bank stocks are up, post-election, but Winslow said that his firm was increasing its exposure in that industry even before the election.

“We felt [banks] were undervalued, and we were going into an increasing interest rate environment,” he said, explaining Nabell Winslow’s bullish stance. “We also saw potential for loosening of regulations. It is a perfect storm; [banking stocks] have gone up a lot.”

About the recent decline in tech stocks, which some analysts attribute to uncertainty about Trump’s immigration and trade policies, Winslow is philosophical. He believes the tech downturn is more of a blip than a trend.

“Tech stocks have been on quite a run. Now there is fear of a trade war, so companies like Apple are selling less oversees,” he said. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think tech stocks will recover.”

Nabell Winslow is also eyeing industries that would benefit from federal government spending in areas such as infrastructure and defense, seen as priorities in a Trump administration. But it’s early days at this point: Without more specificity, Winslow said his firm is not jumping in completely.

Winslow believes that a Trump administration will result in two major positive impacts on the U.S. economy: corporate tax reform and less stringent financial and health care regulation.

“When you look at the last two to six years, Obama and the Republicans have largely agreed [about the need for corporate tax reform] but have not worked hard enough to get it done,” Winslow said. “That is going to happen now in the next six months.”

Lower corporate taxes will encourage companies that have stashed their cash abroad to repatriate it, which will bring “trillions of dollars” back into the U.S. economy, although the details of such reform legislation are unclear at this point, he added.

As part of tax reform, Winslow believes there is likely to be a small business tax cut, including an S-Corp tax cut.

“If that happens, that is a huge deal. It is going to drive more business in America,” he said, adding that a similar upswing in the economy will result from the “unleashing” of the financial and health care industries from the current level of regulation.

What changes would he like to see in banking regulation?

“A lot of people are talking about Dodd-Frank,” he said, adding that he would like to see the federal act relaxed to make it easier for banks to lend money. “We need to make sure regulations are there to encourage, not prohibit, small business lending. We need to see an expansion of small business lending. That is positive for banks and positive for America.”

He would also like to see a simplification and clarification of the new fiduciary rule, scheduled for implementation in April and designed to eliminate any conflicts of interest by investment advisers.

“We all want what’s in the consumer’s best interest, but not at the expense of the consumer’s choice,” he said.

Like Winslow, PNC economist Mekael Teshome anticipates that the U.S. is moving toward higher interest rates, but doesn’t see it as a negative, necessarily.

“I don’t think a Fed rate hike in December will directly affect consumer or business lending too much. We [at PNC] had already been assuming the rate hike in our forecast prior to the election. Consumer demand for loans will be driven more by forces that had already been at work: more and more people working every month, some improvement in income growth and strengthening housing markets.

“Similarly, business demand for loans will be driven more what happens elsewhere in the economy. If our outlook for moderate economic growth in 2017 holds – 2.2 percent real GDP growth – demand for business loans should move in line with that.”

Also, like Winslow, Teshome is fairly confident there will be corporate tax cuts.

“It’s good for businesses, which generally welcome it, and it’s good for economic growth, but again, there is the risk of stoking inflation,” he said.

One area of weakness, should the Trump administration try to renegotiate trade deals, could be exports and imports, the economist said. He predicts that any such changes would cause the U.S. and other countries to hike tariffs on imports.

“This is probably not good for the Carolinas,” he said. “There is the expectation that global trade will weaken, shipping volumes will weaken. That tends to portend economic downturns. In the Carolinas, that will have an effect on ports and shipbuilders.”