BackIt’s the Yellen rally, not the Trump trade
Trump inherited an economy in its eighth year of expansion with the lowest interest rates for such a boom in at least half a century
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US President Donald Trump is nothing if not persistent when it comes to taking credit for the best US stock market since 2013. That puts him at odds with almost every arbiter, from Business Insider to The Motley Fool to The New York Times to the Fact Checker at the Washington Post to Yahoo.com. All say the boast is not credible, mostly because Trump inherited an economy in its eighth year of expansion with the lowest interest rates for such a boom in at least half a century.
Economist Larry Summers, director of the Mossavar-Ragmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a former treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, told Bloomberg that Trump’s claims are preposterous and irresponsible as a president.Bloomberg
11 weeks of bliss shattered for market’s hottest trade
It’s tough luck for semiconductor bulls that during a stretch in which one of their favourite things, bitcoin, surged to $11,000, the industry took its worst stock market beating in 23 months. Chipmakers, whose 43% surge before Monday made them the best-performing group in the S&P 500, were summarily ousted from that throne as steady selling sent them down more than 5% on the week. Standard bearers Nvidia Corp. and Applied Materials Inc. slumped at least 8.9%, while Micron Technology Inc. lost 15%. Blame it on the rotation, as headlines on Donald Trump’s tax plan combined with concern about memory-chip prices to crush semiconductors during a week when transportation stocks, banks and phone companies jumped.
Bloomberg
Bond traders on edge as Flynn spurs rally
Within a span of minutes Friday, bond traders had to put on the back burner just about everything they were focused on heading into the home stretch of 2017.
Deliberations over how many times the Federal Reserve will tighten next year, and how many Republican senators were on board with the GOP tax plan suddenly seemed irrelevant for Treasuries.
The benchmark 10-year yield plunged almost 10 basis points on news that former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents and is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller. Bloomberg
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