Ok, let’s just step back for a second and take stock of everything that’s happened in the past 72 hours.

  • Gary Cohn resigned in disgust over Trump’s decision to start a trade war;
  • That same decision prompted Europe to threaten retaliatory measures on bourbon, peanut butter, cranberries and orange juice;
  • Trump got sued by a porn star;
  • A former Trump campaign aide went on a drunken tour of cable news networks and, in addition to lambasting pretty much everyone on the face of the planet save Roger Stone, said Robert Mueller “likely has something” on the President
  • And it’s just Wednesday. At some point last week (and I can’t find the post right now, but I’ll dig it up later and add the link in), I said that we seem to be back where we were late last summer in terms of Trump. That is, back in a situation where this joke is perpetually applicable: “this was the worst week for the Trump administration since last week.”

    Markets were of course shaken on Tuesday evening when news of Cohn’s resignation  hit, and due to unfortunate timing, Asia was the first casualty. It was a choppy session as traders seemed to be unsure how to balance the positive news out of the Korean peninsula with the turmoil emanating from D.C. (and that says a lot – investors are now looking to Kim Jong-Un for stability amid the global chaos Trump is fostering). Ultimately, Asian stocks were lower.

    If you had to pick two headlines from the U.S. session to file away, here are a couple of good candidates:

  • NAVARRO SAYS HE’S NOT A CANDIDATE TO REPLACE COHN
  • SANDERS: POTENTIAL TARIFF CARVEOUTS FOR MEXICO, CANADA
  • The former is obviously good news because the last thing anyone needs is a situation where Peter Navarro is given even more clout and the latter is positive for NAFTA negotiations and also suggests Trump may be prepared to tone this shit down a little bit (earlier in the day, Wilbur Ross tried to say the same thing Huck-San said, but ended up making things worse with an errant comment about “blowing up the world“).

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