Well here we are on Tuesday, frozen in time as a whole lot of markets sit precariously close to knee-jerk, French election levels ahead of what’s being billed as a “bigly†unveil on taxes from the Trump administration.
As you’ve undoubtedly heard, the President is basically going to come out and tell voters how “phenomenal†it’s going to be when he cuts taxes for individuals and lowers the corporate rate to 15%. Of course as Bloomberg writes this morning, “details will be left until later negotiations among congressional leaders and officials from Treasury.â€
Right. Which kinda makes it seem like this isn’t any different from anything else Trump does. Bombast and promises followed immediately by a whole lot of nothing as his aides are left to work out the details with Congress. Of course that latter task shouldn’t really be something that’s Herculean given that the GOP controls the government, but hey, this is Washington and if there’s not gridlock, then someone isn’t doing a good job of not doing their job.
In G-10, the euro is hanging onto post-French-election gains amid falling volatility. As Morgan Stanley notes, “investors’ focus is now shifting to ECB’s meeting later this week, where the governing council might acknowledge the improved economic outlook of the eurozone.†The yen fell, as risk-on sentiment predominates and markets await the pre-detail details of Trump’s tax plan. USDJPY rose 0.5%, helping the Nikkei 225 to close higher by 1% give or take. More broadly, the dollar is mixed against G–10 peers.
Treasuries were under a bit of pressure. Yields retraced some of the (somewhat counter-intuitive) decline we saw during the US session on Monday, as traders seem to be honing in on Trump’s apparent willingness to avert a government shutdown by delaying funding for his goddamn Quixote-esque border wall.
