– This is the script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on November 2, Wednesday.
Welcome to CNBC Business Daily, I'm Qian Chen.
Eight Nobel laureates joined 362 other economists in an open letter arguing that Americans should not vote for Donald Trump.
"Donald Trump is a dangerous, destructive choice for the country. He misinforms the electorate, degrades trust in public institutions with conspiracy theories, and promotes willful delusion over engagement with reality," the economists write.
"If elected, he poses a unique danger to the functioning of democratic and economic institutions, and to the prosperity of the country. For these reasons, we strongly recommend that you do not vote for Donald Trump," the letter concludes.
Despite the apparent breadth of this week's letter, many economists are also against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's policies. In a September letter, 306 economists published a letter against Clinton's "ill-advised economic agenda."
Assume, for a moment, that Donald J. Trump wins the presidency.
Simon Johnson, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist, posited that Mr. Trump's presidency would "likely cause the stock market to crash and plunge the world into recession."
He predicted that Mr. Trump's "anti-trade policies would cause a sharp slowdown, much like the British are experiencing" after their vote to exit the European Union.
In explaining his prediction, Professor Johnson wrote that Europe's economy is so fragile that "Trump's trade-led recession would tip Europe back into full-blown recession, which would likely precipitate a serious banking crisis." After that, he continued: "If this risk were not contained - and the probability of a European banking debacle is already disconcertingly high - there would be a further negative spiral. Either way, the effects on emerging markets and all lower-income countries would be dramatic."
Johnson's pessimism is shared by many economists across Wall Street.
Naturally enough, investors and analysts hate uncertainty.
Hillary Clinton largely represents the status quo, and Mr. Trump is much harder to predict.
In all likelihood, a Trump victory would lead to a swift, knee-jerk sell-off. Many investors will choose to sell stocks and ask questions later.
But in the days and weeks after a Trump victory, among investors who cull their portfolios carefully, the decision about buying and selling will be company by company, industry by industry, currency by currency and so forth.
Fears have been stirred up, as we can see the VIX index jumped for almost 38% during the past week.
If Mr. Trump wins, two companies that seem poised for an immediate pummeling are AT&T and Time Warner, given how much Candidate Trump has objected to their recently announced merger plan. AT&T, by the way, also happens to have a huge business in Mexico.
The biggest test for the stock markets might be pegged to the future leadership of the Federal Reserve. "There is much more uncertainty regarding who Trump might nominate, though he has made it clear he would not renominate Chair Yellen," Goldman Sachs wrote in a note to clients. "His criticisms of Fed policy are somewhat ambiguous; he has suggested rates have been left too low for too long, but also warns of negative consequences of rate hikes. We would expect that financial markets would view a Trump victory as having slightly hawkish implications, since it would make a change in what many view as a dovish-leaning Fed leadership much more likely."
In truth, it's impossible to predict how the markets would settle into a Trump presidency, despite the speculation on all sides. In all likelihood, it will take time for investors to truly make sense and "math out" how his policies would affect the economy. Health care and biotechnology stocks, which have been driven down over concerns that Mrs. Clinton will seek greater regulation and possibly even price controls, might also pop.
CNBC Qian Chen, reporting from Singapore.