Trump's greatness in stock picking is a puzzler

Published Tue, Jul 5 20163:18 PM EDTUpdated Tue, Jul 5 20165:00 PM EDT

Breakingviews

Robert Cyran

Donald Trump wants to make America great again, but it seems he's not so great at managing his investment portfolio. Many of the Republican presidential front-runner's disclosed stock and bond holdings have values below $1,001 each, yet seem to produce outsized income. It reflects the fuzzy math found in many of his policy proposals. Trump's stock of liquid assets is important because he was largely self-funding his campaign until recently. He has loaned his presidential bid about $45.7 million, and said in June he would not pay himself back. He lists about $31 million in bank and money-market accounts, but his other investments are puzzling. His brokerage accounts show he owns about 50 stocks that have values of less than $1,001 apiece. Yet the income brought in from those investments appears to range from $50,000 to $100,000 to even $1 million, according to his last election-related financial disclosure. That doesn't add up. For example, Trump lists less than $1,001 worth of Starwood Hotels stock, which would amount to about 13 shares based on the price when the disclosure was filed in May. He would've earned about $24 in dividends over the last year, instead of the $50,000 maximum on the disclosure. More from Breakingviews : It's not how much oil, but how much influence It's a similar story with his bonds. There are about 60 corporate bonds listed with values of less than $1,001, even though the instruments trade in $1,000 increments. In one instance, Thermo Fisher debentures worth less than $1,001 yielded an income of up to $15,000, though it appears they would actually bring in about $42 based on the highest coupon rate publicly available. Other holdings seem to underestimate gains. One account lists Royal Bank of Canada bonds worth between $1 million and $5 million, but they only seem to bring in as much as $201. All of this might be explained in some way. But Trump's campaign declined to comment. The New York real-estate mogul has been accused by critics within his party of being off base on his policy calculations. He wants to slash income-tax rates across the board to spur growth, but that would add $1 trillion to the deficit every year, according to the Tax Foundation. Now that Trump is seeking outside funds to finance his bid, he won't need to rely as much on his own fortune. But without more detailed tax returns, which he's refusing to release, the abnormalities in his portfolio leave more questions for voters to puzzle over. For more independent commentary and analysisfrom Reuters Breakingviews, visit breakingviews.com

Donald Trump, presumptive Republican presidential nominee

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