Market Manipulator in Chief
We often focus on the obvious about Trump: Thin-skinned narcissist, cheesy reality television star, criminal, schoolyard bully, prolific liar, lazy spray painted hair-weaved fake, skirt chasing philanderer, welsher, and pretty much all-round shitbag. But that’s not all. Except for disassembling our government and packing the courts with incompetent ideologues, Trump really doesn’t do anything. His trade wars are circular and have only accomplished 3 things – bankrupting US farmers and businesses, costing the American people hundreds of billions of dollars, and finally, handing global trade dominance to the Chinese.
But there is something else he does that almost no one focuses on; he roils the markets with his sudden proclamations. It goes something like this:
Trump runs a never ending cycle in almost everything he does while never really accomplishing anything. Without warning, he slaps tariffs on selected imports, crashing the markets, then he starts making off the cuff comments about some kind of “deal” that increases with time. The market rallies, nothing with trade changes, then he attacks China (or whatever country du jour), crashes the markets again. Rinse and repeat. He uses the same tactic with not only trade talks, but in negotiations with allies, foes, and actually dangerous countries like North Korea. Part of his tactic includes spouting bullshit on national television while standing in front of his helicopter with turbine engines screaming in the background, called by Stephen Colbert “Chopper Talk”.
But it’s more nefarious than that. Every time Trump shoots off his mouth and moves the markets, somebody makes a lot of money while somebody else loses a lot of money. I have always believe he does this on purpose, especially when markets are sagging due to his trade wars or other idiocy. In fact, one of his buddies, aging corporate raider Carl Icahn, saved millions when he dumped $31 million in shares of steel industry stocks just days before Trump announced steep China import tariffs. But it gets worse – in October, Vanity Fair published an article documenting very suspicious trades in the S&P futures markets timed precisely to make hundreds of millions of dollars when a Trump proclamation moves the markets. We know Trump intentionally manipulates markets with lies. One well documented case was last August when Trump blatantly lied at the G7 summit that he was talking to top officials in China when there were no talks occurring. The markets rallied at the lie, only to trade off when nothing happened – again.
Trump has always gotten away with questionable, if not outright illegal activity. It’s engrained in his DNA. He’s not constrained by rules and laws normal people follow, and it would not be in the slightest bit surprising that, in addition to his random lying, he (or someone close to him) was actually signaling to associates when he was going to make some big proclamation so they could get on the right side of a particular trade to rake in cash. It certainly looks like it. As one of Vanity Fair’s trading sources said, “There is definitely some hanky panky going on.”
It could be as simple as:
1) one of Trumpski’s buddies says something intended to set Trump off
2) That Trumpski buddy makes the appropriate investment to profit off any Trumpski Tantrum
3) Trumpski has the tantrum
4) $$$
1Had the same thoughts about N Korea and their missile launching schedule.
And trump’s pre-announcement of that monthly jobs report…
2I’ve been trading as a professional in the futures market for more than 20 years, so I can firmly state that the Atlantic article about suspicious trades in the S&P 500 futures contract is complete and utter bullshit.
The cycle of
Talk tough ==>
Threaten tariffs ==>
Impose tariffs ==>
Claim progress ==>
Talk tough ==> ….
is Trump’s negotiating style. Be a bully, sucker punch the opposite side and hope they capitulate. When they do not, keep going until ultimately the other side makes a token compromise. Then claim victory. And repeat the cycle elsewhere.
3Let’s make the count easier, El Jefe. Is there a member of this maladministration that hasn’t been busy spending our money while lining their own pockets? Pick a number, any number as a multiplier to include the hangars on to the hangars on profiting from Donnie’s reign of plunder.
Bang. Sound of head meeting desk whenever the mainstream media makes mention of IQ4.5 profiting as if it comes as a surprise. Sunrise must be a real shocker for them every damn morning, if they were expecting anything less then criminal behavior from Donnie, his family and associates.
Two articles of impeachment? Should be two large baskets to include all the impeachable offenses committed by crooked Donnie.
4I can concur with much of your commentary. But not all. To end up with Biden who, IMO, is repub lite, is an indicie of a long term process of dumbing down too many in this country. A result of the haves wanting ever more at the expense of the have-nots?
5Trump is not the initiator of this process; just a successful end product. Nothing new here since ancient man but only a change in the clothing and technology. No knowledge is inherited from our ancestors. (Why is that?)
Only recently have I been thinking that a main “cure” for our situation may be another bloody civil war or its equivalent, a war that will be more extensive than the last one and it will have to essentially do away with the 1%ers. Otherwise we will do the Santayana deja-vu ‘those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it’ dance all over again in the same old recycle time frame.
Is it too early for “Merry Xmas”? ;>)
I have watched the market and economy for years. This is classic churn and dump. The stock market short term gains are destroying the economy. It is like a fad diet. Yes you lose a little weight but it was water weight and you still have the same problem. The other way he has tried to manipulate is with interest rates. Obama inherited the worst economy and it was 2-3 year to turn it around but once it started improving it had a strong basis. Trump has done nothing to prepare for the next downturn. Bullying the Fed won’t cut it and we are overdue a correction.
6@Zach I have been trading in these markets for longer than you and can tell you unequivocally your answer is pure bullshit. I’ve just about seen it all in over 30 years and this scenario is easy to see.
7Bingo, thanks El Jefe!
8The Market and Wall Street is just a gamblers wet dream and nothing more then a Vegas Casino. Not something one should rely on for your financial security, it’s sooo unstable and easy to manipulate.
If Trump saw a nickel on the ground, he’d ask a secret service agent to pick it up, then tell the agent he’d spotted a quarter with his perfect eyesight, his fantastic 20-20 vision, repeatedly, until the agent gave Trump a quarter.
9yeah, I’ve been watching this for the past couple of years, and noticed that pattern as well. my first suspicion is that it’s insider trading, on a grand scale. that said, I don’t think Trump himself is necessarily smart enough to think of this, but he’s certainly easy enough to be manipulated by those who are.
10@ Jefe – I think you’ve misunderstood my comment.
If you look again at the Vanity Fair article, you will notice the reporter makes statements that are best translated as
“Someone bought 30% of the total daily volume of ES in the last 2 minutes of trading.”
That’s simply not possible – there just isn’t enough liquidity on offer at that time. In addition, CME has strict volume and size limits, and all the purported trades blow through them.
Finally, both my friends who still do HFT market-making on CME and the CME itself all reject the idea that any of these trades happened. So, I do not believe the examples in Vanity Fair article, and hence I do not believe the article itself.
Note – I do not reject the idea that someone in the administration capitalizes on advance knowledge of Trump’s actions.
11Anybody know how JJ and Bubba are doing?
12One has to wonder if it’s not ideology [of which Trump has none] but this arrangement instead that has Moscow Mitch, Miss Lindsay, Gaetz, Jordan et. al. signaling how things will go in the Senate over the next few weeks.
After all, who is better situated to make piles of money off Trump’s tantrums than certain people [and I use the term loosely] in Congress?
x x x x x
And seconding what Diane @ 12 said.
13Way back when he first began trashing specific companies my first thought was – who’s he got shorting these stocks? First thought. No kidding. It’s nice that someone else has come around to my jaundiced view. I always expect the worst from Republicanites and am never disappointed, sadly.
14As Drumpf turns the American government into a criminal enterprise, his installed henchmen grease the skids for corruption of all U.S. institutions. The sycophant party is fine with this and will reap the ill-gotten gains of the market fixes.
15Our country is doomed if we don’t rid ourselves of the Evil in the White House ASAP!
My husband and I have noticed the same cycles. We are hopeful the SEC is watching this. The machine trades are another factor.
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