With Donald Trump elected to the White House, investors are already scrambling out of risk assets. This is a reminder to wealth managers to be a calm guide for clients.

Gold prices are up, the dollar is down and stock futures have fallen as evidence rolled in during the early hours of today that Donald Trump, the brash, at times outrageous figure who has been the Republican nominee in the US election this year, has won the race for the the White House in January.

Taking crucial battleground states such as Ohio and Florida and Trump has – as of the time of writing – secured 276 electoral college votes, passing over the 270 mark he needed to win.

The price of gold – the classic safe-haven asset - at one stage today rose by almost 5 per cent to trade at $1,337.38 per ounce (source: Bloomberg), which is said to be the largest intraday rise since June. In the forex market, the dollar dropped by up to 3.8 per cent against the yen, 2.4 per cent versus the euro and is down about 2.3 per cent against the Swiss franc. The Mexican peso also fell. Futures on the S&P 500 Index fell heavily.

The reaction, given Trump’s statements about his (in this publication’s view, harmful) desire to slap tariffs on Chinese exports, his calls for tax cuts while being sketchy about what he would do to bear down on debt, is perhaps understandable. Just as financial markets were not predicting a Brexit vote on 23 June – another remarkable blow to received opinion – the same situation appears the case with the US election. There is also the suspicion that, as with Brexit, polls and surveys have underestimated the true support for the insurgent party and underplayed unhappiness with the status quo. The Brexit vote was also, in some ways, something of an early signpost to this election. The received wisdom of finance, politics, academia and big media is under assault. And just as the Remain side in the Brexit referendum arguably caused self-harm by an overly negative and even arrogant campaign, the Democrats may wonder whether choosing a candidate such as Hillary Clinton, with all the controversy around emails and the Clinton Foundation, which deeply rattled even hard-line supporters, has been wise.

In his acceptance speech, Trump made statesmanlike comments about working for all Americans and being fair and co-operative to other nations; his talk about spending on infrastructure and similar projects is not classic limited government conservatism, and might give the debt markets the jitters about how all this is going to be paid for. How much of that ing spendcomes to pass, time will tell. (With politics, management of expectations is all, as President Barack Obama found.) With a Republican-controlled Congress, the new president should at face value find it easier to get things done.

What all this may mean for the wealth management industry in particular is difficult to judge at this point, suffice to say that as with other dramatic episodes in geopolitics and markets – Brexit, the Swiss franc surge of 2015, Indian national elections and sanctions against Russia over Crimea – now is the time for wealth advisors to prove their worth to clients. They must do this by laying out, as calmly and sharply as possible, the likely investment scenarios ahead, the right strategies to protect wealth, and the appropriate time frame over which to judge a course of action.

Trump is, goodness knows, hardly an “establishment” Republican: he does not play familiar tunes about free markets, open trade, traditional values and strong support for NATO. (But he is also unpredictable, and a few years ago seemed close to people such as the Clintons. He cannot always be put into a neat ideological box.) His rise to prominence, it has to be acknowledged, has shown a certain resilience. For all that, there are serious questions in many people’s minds about his character, his behaviour and comments. A crucial variable will be Congress. It appears at the time of writing to be in Republican hands, but with many members of the Grand Old Party deeply unhappy about Trump, but benefiting to some extent from his victory, Trump will not be able to count on a completely quiescent legislature to do his bidding. He will be in a strong position, but not an invincible one.

This publication will continue to track developments where relevant to its audience in the days and weeks ahead.