Trump’s Saber Rattles Markets – Ep. 275

Fire and Fury Not Strong Enough
Donald Trump's saber-rattling against North Korea continues. Yesterday the President was asked to clarify his statement about the "fire and fury" and he came out and said that that wasn't strong enough; he was really sugar-coating it. What he really means is something worse - if anything his statement was not strong enough. Again, today Trump issued another threat that N. Korea had better be careful, if they say anything if they will regret it big time, so the level of rhetoric is rising.
A Legend in Trump's Mind
He was talking about the booming economy, the stock market at record highs, employment surging, all these jobs coming back. He is spinning this ridiculous phony story about a recovery that doesn't exist.  Just as I pointed out he took credit for building up our nuclear armament to a level higher than it has ever been - all this is happening, unfortunately, in Donald Trump's mind.
Volatility Up
There was a big down day in the markets; it dropped over 200 points yesterday; there was a small bounce back today  - the Dow was up about 14, not a major recovery, But if you look at the Vix, which is a measure of fear, a measure of volatility, it was near the lows, below 10 mid-week and it spiked all the way up to 16 yesterday, which is the highest it has been since April. It looks like it is above a key moving average on a weekly chart, so that shows a heightened risk in the market.
Dollar No Safe Haven
Interestingly enough, the dollar index closed near the lows of the day, just at around 93 even.  It is down on the week.  In fact, this is the lowest weekly close for the dollar index for the entire year. Now, you would expect the dollar to have some kind of a safe haven bounce with all of the saber-rattling - all of the worries about nuclear war.  Typically, you would get money going into the dollar. I guarantee you, if the circumstances were the same a year ago,  there would have been a big rally in the dollar this week. But not now.