United States

America’s largest banks and their shareholders were quick to celebrate a recovery in trading revenues over the past year. But they may have spoken too soon.

Wall Street vets know they can’t fight the Fed – especially with the ostensibly “data-dependent” central bank committing to returning the Fed funds rate to 3% over the next two years.  But with the arrival of the summer doldrums ushering in low trading volumes across markets, traders are acknowledging that they can’t fight the seasons, either.

Mark Yusko, CIO of Morgan Creek Capital Management, is unafraid to say it how it is. Recall in May, his keynote address warned:

A trying day for the Trump administration has turned more bizarre, when shortly after Donald Trump Jr. released the chain of emails released ahead of his correspondence with the Russian lawyer who had promised to deliver anti-Clinton information with the implied blessing of the Russian government, a free-speech group sued President Donald Trump for blocking Twitter users from his @realDonaldTrump account, arguing the practice violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

When we discussed last month's JOLTS report - Janet Yellen's favorite labor market indicator - we used one word to describe it: "schizophrenic", because while the BLS reported that job openings in April soared to the highest on record, hiring crashed, confounding not only economists, but also the supervisors of BLS goalseekers who "came up" with the number. Fast forward to today, when moments ago the latest JOLTS report summarized, with its usual 2 month lag, the labor situation in the US.

When Obama announced the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and the seizure of Russian diplomatic compounds in Maryland last December, in response to alleged Russian interference in the election, Putin just smiled and said Russia would not retaliate, expecting that relations between Russia and the US would normalize under president Trump.