While investors calibrate their post-election bets, one already surging industry continued to gain: the prison business.
Driving the surge in private prison stocks is Trump's promised immigration crackdown.
Zoom out: Two of the biggest players in the industry earn revenue from housing detained migrants through contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Geo Group, which also provides monitoring services for people on the government's list of non-detained, "removable" non-citizens, saw its stock gain 3.9% today, contributing to a 67% surge since Election Day.
CoreCivic,a slightly smaller competitor, has gained nearly 65%.
Zoom in: Geo Group executive chair George Zoley yesterday forecast a "potential sea change" for the business with the new Trump administration, and "a potential doubling" of all of its services, whether it's in detention, transportation or monitoring.
Reality check: Both Geo Group and CoreCivic traded at or near long-term highs in the early days of the first Trump administration, buoyed by the same hopes for new business.
Both stocks now trade well below those early-2017 levels.
