I think Trump knows the only chance he has of postponing the onset of this recession until beyond the 2020 election is to get the Federal Reserve to preemptively cut interest rates and launch QE4.
What set the low, what was the catalyst for this rally, was the Fed getting more dovish. It went from ‘we’re going to keep hiking rates’ to ‘we’re finished hiking rates.’ It went from ‘quantitative tightening is on autopilot’ to ‘quantitative tightening is going to end over the summer.’ And so that shift – where the Fed went from being hawkish to dovish – that started the rally. Well, this more recent shift, where the Fed changed expectations again and disappointed the markets by saying, ‘Hey, we’re not as dovish as you think. We’re not going to cut rates,’ that, I think, capped the market. And now, Trump coming in and taking away the prospects of this great trade deal, well, that’s like a one-two punch, and I think this bear market rally, like I said, is over and we’re going lower.”
