It is not three Trump policies weighing on the stock market: it is four. Add to Barry's list: having your sole policy accomplishment be a tax cut tuned not to boost growth: Barry Ritholtz: Donald Trump Owns This Stock Market: "I assumed that Trump’s aggressive style, economic ignorance and personal peccadilloes wouldn’t leave a lasting mark on either stocks or bonds.... The chaos surrounding this presidency proves that was wishful thinking.... Consider three distinct policies of this administration, and how they are hurting the economy and markets.... Higher interest rates.... Powell’s leanings were well known...
...This self-inflicted error is perplexing: When Trump was running for office, he berated Yellen, saying she “should be ashamed that rates were so low.” We have since found out that he did not re-appoint Yellen because he felt that, at 5-foot, 3-inches, she was “too short” to run the central bank. This has to be one of the great unforced mistakes in the postwar history of U.S. monetary policy.... Rising rates have helped push the yield curve toward inversion.... Now, we see broader signs that global growth is slowing ... Yet another self-inflicted wound seems to have taken place in the aftermath of the G-20 summit in Argentina.... The truce turned out to be nonexistent. Bloomberg News showed a side-by-side comparison of statements by Trump and by the Chinese government on the supposed deal, which was never reduced to writing. It isn’t just that Trump overstated the terms of the agreement; there was no deal.... The president sandbagged Wall Street. Despite his well-known casual relationship with the truth, traders naively assumed the president wouldn’t mislead about something as crucial as the resolution of an expanding trade war. By the time the president declared “I am a Tariff Man,” he had lost the trust of traders....
We are nearing the halfway mark of Trump’s presidency. Those waiting for that pivot toward his being presidential have been disappointed. Instead, they are now extrapolating his policy errors forward, and finding a significant and negative affect on the U.S. economy and stock markets. I’m not in the business of making forecasts, so I will pose a question: Does anyone think it gets better from here?
#shouldread #orangehairedbaboon #finance
