Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has withdrawn his bid for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election. Former South Carolina Governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley trails behind former President Donald Trump in recent polls, especially after he dominated the Iowa caucus, but could she be a more reliable candidate that could put market stress at ease?

Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman highlights Wall Street concerns about the stock market in case of another Trump candidacy.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

BRAD SMITH: Governor Ron DeSantis has officially ended his presidential bid, paving the way for former president, Donald Trump, and former South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley, to square off in tomorrow's New Hampshire primary. Haley has received extensive backing from Wall Street over the course of her campaign. We spoke with IBM vice chair, Gary Cohn, about Wall Street's support. And here's what he had to say.

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GARY COHN: Wall Street, like most of the world, would like to hear a variety of opinions and how people would deal with the current situation that we're in. Because look, we're in a pretty tough environment in the world today not just economically, but if you look at the environment and look at political environment, we've got a lot of problems around the world.

BRAD SMITH: Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman joins us to set the scene. Hey, Rick. Which candidate would be better at least by Wall Street standards?

RICK NEWMAN: I think Gary Cohn was trying to say diplomatically we prefer somebody other than Trump.

[CHUCKLES]

But I don't think that's going to be the case. So in terms of what markets might prefer-- keep in mind that Donald Trump wants to impose a 10% tax on almost all imports to the United States. I mean, if Trump were to get elected and actually do that, which he could do without congressional legislation, I don't think markets would love that. But the question, of course, is whether Donald Trump would be able to beat Joe Biden in the general election.

Nikki Haley not into an imports tax, and she's more of an interventionist, you know. She's been-- she has had a lot to say about trying to help Ukraine and be involved, Trump more of an isolationist. So when Gary Cohn talks about geopolitical risks, Trump basically says, let's pull back from all that, and let the world handle its own troubles and get out of it.

SEANA SMITH: And Rick, we also heard from Steve Schwarzman, Blackstone's CEO. Out of Davos, Julie Hyman and Brian Sozzi had the chance to speak with him. And they asked him about what he needs to see in order to endorse a candidate. I want to play a quick bite of what we heard from Steve.