Gauges of the market mood typically pick a point between fear and greed. What we have now is not quite either of those. It is a universe where muddling through and imminent disaster exist side by side at all times and investors have no clue which way to jump. It’s exhausting and infuriating, it litters markets with opportunities to lose money, and it’s here to stay.
“He’s behind you! Oh no he isn’t!” as the analysts at Rabobank rather deftly put it this week. No prizes for guessing the identity of the pantomime villain here, of course. It’s Donald Trump, whose rethinks on high-stakes economic policy are almost too speedy and too numerous to count.
To take one of the biggies, just over a week ago the US president declared on his Truth Social platform that the “termination” of “too slow” Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell could not come fast enough — a grotesque and reckless assault on the most important position in global finance. Later, a reporter asked Trump if he was trying to remove Powell from office. “Yeah,” he replied. “If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast. Believe me.”