President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Honestly, the minute by minute commentary on where the Dow Jones is aside (and it is well off the highs it made at the beginning of October -- in correction territory now). ... back in June, Trump enthusiastically tweeted about how he was looking forward to the jobs number that morning. Surprise, surprise, it was a number that beat expectations by a lot. Markets traded on the tweet, prior to the actual number. It was criminal -- literally, except that criminality has become a relative thing now.

After the G20 summit in Argentina, Trump tweeted about this great deal with China. China getting rid of auto tariffs, etc. US equities, which had been under pressure for weeks -- and the pressure is due to liquidity conditions tightening as central banks around the world, including the Fed, have taken their foot off the gas a little -- jumped on the headline. The only problem? It was all bullshit. Over the next few days, as Steve Mnuchin and Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro did interviews and had to pussy foot around it, while admitting there was nothing tangible, the market reacted and violently lurched back. Including the 800 point move on Tuesday.

This morning. ... Trump tweets about China again. About 15 minutes before the jobs number. Immediately, the reaction from traders I am talking with as it was happening was, "The jobs number is going to miss. He is trying to change the topic." Why would they guess that? Think back to June. Prior to a blow out number on the back of the sugar high we were in, he was on twitter crowing about it. Today, he was trying to change the topic right before the number was released. It was predictable what was going to be released. It is also predictable that he knows that stocks have been correcting as the euphoria from tax cuts is wearing off and markets have been left with slowly tightening credit conditions. And he has made the stock market a barometer for his performance.

Sure enough, they sent Kudlow onto CNBC to talk about jobs right afterward. ... and he had more to say about China than jobs. Trying to change the topic. Hinted that they may extend the truce with China beyond the 90 days. That created a headline, which the market algos reacted to positively. The problem? The bullshit, which worked well a year and a half ago, is no longer flying. Not with the liquidity that pumped up equities very slowly being drained. Which is why the bullshit bought about an hour and a half before equities starting trading down again -- in the direction they have been going. Will that hold for the entire day? Who knows? We have seen a huge move down over the last several weeks. Technically, the market is way oversold. Fundamentally, it is in a bubble that has built up over years. The biggest margin-enabled bubble equities have ever seen. You tell me when that bubble is going to pop. Regardless, here is how Zero Hedge characterized Kudlow's BS attempt at pumping things back up. Confounded Traders Blame The Algos As Stocks Dump After Kudlow Pump

I have no idea what US equity markets are going to do minute to minute or even day by day right now, given that technicals kick in when things get way oversold. What I do know is that the market is all about the Federal Reserve -- as it was when it grinded higher to ridiculous valuation levels, ignoring everything fundamental about the economy and those valuations. Nothing else matters. And our central bank has reducing its balance sheet slowly thinking it can suck the liquidity it used to puff up asset prices out without anyone noticing, and even though their rate hike cycle has been running for 3 years and has lifted the overnight rate only 225 basis points, the amount of debt (including the insane levels of margin in the stock market they are responsible for) they have created can't handle anything except real rates (not nominal rates) well below 0 percent.

It is time for them to pay the piper, finally. They are in the position of a credit bubble that is slowly starting to implode. Rates ticked up a little, and there was turmoil. So the Fed chairman did the predictable and backed off verbally, which stemmed the rising rates, but started to flatten the yield curve. If they keep trying to tighten conditions, the asset bubbles are going to pop as people default on their debt that has fueled their fantasy -- this includes the bubble in U.S. equities, which is really a side show, because phony equity prices don't affect most people. If the Fed back offs, and try to keep their credit bubble inflated, the yield curve is going to continue to flatten and eventually completely invert, and the recession they finally allow to happen is going to pop their bubble anyhow. This was the end game all along. The fact that they could keep an artificial environment propped up for a period of years didn't mean that there wasn't going to be a price to pay for the artificial sugar high they passed off as their genius. If you want to see what they did. ... and where it is headed. ... don't watch minute to minute fluctuations in the stock market. Pull up a chart of bitcoin. The run up as they were pumping liquidity in. And what has happened as they have tried to gingerly remove just a tiny portion of what they pumped in over the past year or so. The ride up was a grind. When they lose control and we start seeing credit defaults, the ride down is going to be an elevator ride.

Donald Trump and his endless bullshit is beside the point. Sure, he helped extend the party a bit with fiscal irresponsibility in the form of a tax cut and increased spending. But that sugar high is starting to wear off already, and markets seem to have moved out of the euphoria of it. Unless Congress has another parlor trick ready to sell out some more of the future (for an irresponsible short-term gain), he is hostage to all of the debt monetization since 2008 that has created a credit bubble -- and all of the asset bubbles that followed all of that credit looking for places to be spent. If it all pops, Trump is going to get blamed, and as much as he actually doesn't deserve that blame (the phoniness well precedes him being elected), he is an f'in moron who made the stock market a barometer of his performance. So now he can own it.