(New York)

There has been a major change in the stock market’s attitude toward the president over the last several weeks. For a long time, the market was very concerned with Trump winning. If Trump looked weak in polls, it was bad for markets. According to RBC, for the last 12 months, the S&P 500 has moved mostly in line with Trump’s odds for reelection. According to the bank, ““For the past year, expectations as to whether Trump will win again in November (as tracked by the betting markets) have been moving in sync with S&P 500 performance … But that relationship has broken down a bit in early June, with Trump’s chances (according to the betting markets) falling and the S&P 500 surging”.

FINSUM: Markets care much more about the economy than they do Trump, and everyone seems to be betting that COVID stimulus will keep going even if Trump loses.

(New York)

The New York Times has published an interesting piece this week which argues that markets and investors are ignoring an ugly and disastrous reality: that the economy is suffering a huge and largely unprecedented collapse in demand. New data out of Europe and Japan, as well as US manufacturing demand, this week showed that demand fell sharply in May, a sharp contrast to the employment jump. The NYT argues that this systemic fall in demand will take time to play out, but that the huge decline in employment and change in behaviors will cause a rupture in demand that will play out over years.

FINSUM: The NYT piece is very bearish. We held off on covering it until new data was released overnight showing a big fall in demand.

(New York)

The public and the media are flabbergasted at how the US stock market has seemed to defy everything we are seeing in “real life”. As of Friday, however, things started to make a little more sense because of good job numbers. Given the general disconnect between markets and the economy, it is important to take a step back and digest what markets really seem to be saying. In our view, the message is clear: not only is the economy going to bounce back, but a year from now, things are going to be better than they were before COVID.

FINSUM: The markets are making a very bold call and essentially pricing for perfection. However, it might not be that unrealistic. If the Fed and the government remain very accommodative, it is not outside the realm of possibility that by the end of June 2021, the economy is larger and potentially healthier than in Feb 2020.

(Washington)

It has been long in the works. So long, in fact, that many seem to have forgotten about it. Yet here it is—a new fiduciary rule from the DOL, almost three years after the last one was vacated. The new version of the rule has just been delivered to the White House for review by the Office of Management and Budget. This starts a multi-month process that may lead to its implementation, but given how late the rule is arriving it may not get enacted before Trump could potentially leave office. If Trump wins the election, the timing is irrelevant, but if he loses and the rule has been in place less than 60 days when the new president takes over, it can very easily be reversed.

FINSUM: We have not yet seen a good summary of the contents of this rule, but will be covering it as soon as possible. The only thing we have heard is that the new rule is “is primarily a prohibited transaction exemption intended to replace the Best Interest Contract Exemption”.

(Washington)

Friday saw the release of what appeared to be absolutely stellar jobs numbers. Instead of the jobless rate potentially hitting almost 20%—which was the forecast—the opposite happened: the unemployment rate fell to 13.3% in May from over 14% in April. Markets soared. However, the reality is that those numbers are both highly inflated, and unrealistic. Firstly, the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted those who are currently furloughed and unpaid as “employed”. It admitted that if it hadn’t done so the unemployment rate would have jumped to over 16%. Secondly, the big jump in hiring was at least partly, and probably hugely, because of an artificial government rule in the PPP program. Small businesses had to hire employees back by the end of June to have their loans turn into grants, so there were artificial incentives to put people back on payroll even I the absence of true business demand.

FINSUM: If you take these two facts together, it becomes clear that the May data is not really a reflection of an economic pickup, so don’t make any predictions based on this.