Bush will accept his party's nomination in Philadelphia on Thursday, riding high in his contest with Democrat Al Gore with a 10 percentage point opinion poll lead. Foreign money has traditionally associated Republicans with a fiscally conservative, pro-business stance but the two sides' plans for how to allocate a projected $4.6 trillion budget surplus in the coming decade has upset that view. Both candidates are promising tax cuts, but Bush's pledge of $1.3 trillion over 10 years far surpasses Gore's $500 billion or so over the same period. For many investors, the economic risks of deeper tax cuts at this stage of the economic cycle makes Gore the preferred option.

"What it really adds up to is a risk of a bit of an old-fashioned boom followed by a bit of an old-fashioned bust," said John Hatherly, who as head of global analysis at M&G Asset Management in London helps to manage more than $40 billion in the US"Ironically as a stock market investor you might be going for the devil you know."