September 19, 2018 | Investors Fiddle as the Nation Burns

The stock market proved once again that it is not so much cool, calm and collected as it is, out of its frigging mind, tacking on yet more price gains in the face of mounting crises on two fronts. The tariff war with China has escalated to the point where its effects have surpassed those that were said to have caused stocks to gyrate wildly in the Smoot-Hawley days leading up to the Great Crash.  Meanwhile, matters seemed equally unsettled on Capitol Hill, where Trump subordinates at the Justice Department were threatening to disobey his order to declassify key documents related to the FBI Russia probe.  He could fire them all for this, and if he does it will turn his political enemies and their staunch allies in the news media even more savage. Since no one expects the President to back down, it is remarkable that Wall Street seems not to care even slightly about the prospect of political nuclear war breaking out before the November elections. Investors act as though they’re confident that all of the ugliness will stir up Trump’s base and tip the election his way. Maybe they’re right. But with stock market in screaming-bullish mode, it would appear that they’ve left little room for error.

Rick Ackerman September 19th, 2018

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