Pros: Did the President Deliberately Snub Wall Street?

Published: Wednesday, 14 Nov 2012 | 3:12 PM ET

By: Lee Brodie
Producer


After meeting with top CEOs from almost every corner of the economy except banking, pro traders can’t help but wonder, does President Obama have a beef with Wall Street?

At a White House meeting of the nation’s most influential CEOs on Wednesday, not a single banking boss was among those in attendance.

GE [GE 20.01 -0.67 (-3.24%) ], Ford [F 10.67 -0.33 (-3%) ], Honeywell[HON 59.96 -1.28 (-2.09%) ], Pepsico [PEP 68.17 -0.41 (-0.6%) ] and many of the nation's other big companies were there. But not big banks.

The Wednesday meeting was one of a series of meetings with business, labor and civic leaders ahead of negotiations with Republicans to avert the fiscal cliff – that is the sharp tax hikes and deep spending cuts that loom at the end of the year.

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What do you think? We want to know!


By not inviting bank CEOs to the White House, is President Obama sending a message to Wall Street?

Yes, he's going to come down hard on Wall Street.
No, he can't meet with everyone out of the gate.

Of all the businesses and industries in the nation, the fiscal cliff is by far the issue that matters most to markets and by proxy Wall Street. Yet they weren't invited.

What gives?

“It seems to me the President is setting up a divide right now,” said top trade Mike Murphy founder and managing partner at Rosecliff Capital. “Representative CEOs from every sector of every industry belonged in that meeting.”

Trader Stephen Weiss , managing partner at Short Hills Capital, also felt slighted.

”CEOs from technology, energy, industrials, consumer products, auto and other were in the room today. But not us.”

And Weiss doesn’t think the turn of events was simply poor planning.

“I think it’s payback for support during the election. This should have been a time to put partisanship aside. But clearly it's not - at least not at the White House.”

Jared Bernstein, former Chief Economist and Economic Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden thinks the criticism and ire are misguided.

“The question is this – is the President sending some kind of message and I’m convinced the answer is no.”

Bernstein went on to say that the President met with his supporters first as would be expected. (Largely Wall Street supported Mitt Romney.) "Of course he's going to meet with his base first," said Bernstein.

But “I guarantee you everyone is going to get their audience with the president.”



The traders weren’t easily convinced. “If the president was looking for a better relationship with Wall Street – he has a heck of a way of showing it,” said Murphy.

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