We Are Now in a Giant Mess

Last Wednesday, I wrote about the very rare appearance of the market unicorn: the simultaneous crashing of the U.S. dollar and the stock market. I noted that this rare phenomenon was almost certainly a portent of more bad things to come, and true to form, bad things have come in abundance.  

Trump’s Liberation Day tariff strategy has been disastrous.  It has led to losses in U.S. equities in excess of eight trillion dollars in just a few short days. In fact, one might say that the only thing “liberated” has been  a good portion of investor’s (both big and rank-and-file)  accumulated net worth that had the misfortune to be sitting in stock portfolios.  In slightly more than two full trading days, the market has dropped by over 15%, and as I write this on Monday morning, it is showing barely discernible signs of life.  These moves have been enormous.  In fact, one can safely categorize them as historic. But as we know, history contains more stories of catastrophes than of victories.