Is anyone watching this Trump car crash?

[soundsys]

WTF is happening? It’s like some bizarre performance art piece.

He’s holding up signs and shouting and throwing out hats it’s just 🤯

Seems the tariffs on Mexico and Canada are to remain unchanged. I hope Mark Carney doesn’t back down!

It's a far left conspiracy that Trump has deliberately manufactured market instability so that he can personally gain from market instability simply because there is no actual evidence of Trump of making any financial gain. That is a conspiracy theory because it has no evidence to back it up.

Indeed Musk has financially suffered from the market volatility.

The reason Trump was stating that this is a good time to buy stocks is because he doesn't want to see a continued run on the market.

As I previously said I am always happy to help on debunking conspiracy theories.

Lastly there has just been a fire on a ship in the North Sea - do you think that the Russian Government has anything to do with it?
https://news.sky.com/story/fire-breaks-out-on-container-ship-in-north-sea-13345247

Yeah that is kind of a nuclear option. If they did then the US would be unable to pay and simply default.

That said going forward I can't see the Chinese Government being willing to continue to keep buying more US debt in order to finance the US trade deficit.

America outwit the Chinese? I think not. Never. Trump is a total tosser with his.head stuck firmly in the first half of the 20th century. Things have moved on, Bigly.

You must be an amazing target for scammers and tricksters. Your credulousness is astonishing.

Oh come on- you can do better than that 😀

I don't know if whales are hard left but this is an interesting theory, with graphs

https://bsky.app/profile/unusualwhales.bsky.social/post/3lmfm5ycbjk2x

Alright, I think people knew of the tariff pause and traded it beforehand.

You can see before Trump posted "buy" on Truth Social, traders opened $QQQ $TQQQ and $SPY calls

RIGHT BEFORE THE NEWS, someone opened $SPY 509 calls, expiring TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Those calls are up 2100% in one hour.

To the extent that it may be a conspiracy theory, I've heard it postulated by as many right wing commentators as left wing ones. Characterising it as a "far left" conspiracy theory is not accurate, and reads as though you're attempting to undermine it on party political grounds, rather than merit.

And, even if Trump's initial intent (when announcing the tariffs) was not market manipulation, there is an astounding (quite literally, unbelievable) level of naivety to think that, when he "Truthed" to his Truth Social followers that it was a "great time to buy" just 4 hours before he announced the 90 day pause was announced, that he didn't know full well that stock prices were about to spike upon his announcement.

I don't see how anyone could possibly believe otherwise.

Firstly it will be pretty easy to find out who exactly placed the large volume of call options with unusually short expiries. And to then find out if it was Trump himself or someone connected to him.

Secondly Trump posting on Truth Social that now is a good time to buy is too general and very unlikely to shift the market.

For the naysayer and conspiracy theory expert amongst us

Art of the deal, innit

The President of the United States of America posted it 15 minutes before the announcement of the tariff pause, nothing to see, absolutely normal........

Secondly Trump posting on Truth Social that now is a good time to buy is too general and very unlikely to shift the market.
Are you on the wind-up? It's not his post that shifted the market; he made his post, encouraging supporters to buy stocks, shortly before announcing the suspension of tariffs, prompting a huge shift in the market.

It's about as plain and obvious an example of insider trading and market manipulation as can be imagined.

And Schiff is now, unsurprisingly and quite correctly, demanding an investigation.

time.com/7276234/trump-tariff-insider-trading-schiff/

And good luck to Mr Schiff. I expect he'll find 'nothing to see here, kindly move along'.

Yes, exactly this.

@1dayatatime

Oh come on- you can do better than that 😀

Not worth the effort in this instance.

Yes, since all the bodies that investigate this kind of thing have quite conveniently been gutted of pretty much all non-partisan employees, I think we can assume it won't go anywhere.

Can’t comment on the tanker so jog on with your attempt to start a bun fight over something unrelated. I’m swithering between you being disingenuous and being a useful idiot for Trump. It’s quite clear nothing anyone here or any expert says will convince you that the glorious leader is on the grift.

If anything it seems to have been the bond markets that have spooked him the adults in the room.

I'm wondering if China stops being friendly with Russia and offers to help Ukraine protect itself in exchange for rare minerals so that Trump can never get his hands on them.

Won't happen, but we can still ponder.....

https://bsky.app/profile/bloomberg.com/post/3lmfx5c3fqv2z

The world’s richest people added $304 billion to their combined net worth, the largest one-day gain in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, after Trump pledged to pause tariffs for some countries

To be fair, it's mostly just wealth they had lost over recent weeks.

And yet that's going to be labelled as a conspiracy theory no doubt. The figures don't lie

Well, China and then the EU upped the ante... and guess what? Trump has partially reversed.

Its all a bully like Trump and his backers understand... one of his former advisers from his first term has said exactly this, he is laughing at countries like the UK, whose Govt cannot even bring themselves to criticise Trump, let alone stand up to him, despite us still having 25% tariffs on cars steel and alloys.

I am being neither deliberately disingenuous nor am I a supporter of Trump.

What does matter to me is the truth, facts and exposing conspiracy theories. Yes Trump has taken political lies and conspiracy theories to a scale never seen before in politics, but there are already plenty of posters doing an excellent job exposing these (eg EU 39% average tariffs on the US).

Of course there is the counter argument that because Trump lies and promotes conspiracy theories then why shouldn't we? The problem with that approach is that opinions become more important than the truth and facts which leads to further political polarisation and discord.

As often quoted "A lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes." And the problem with this is that these lies stick whether that be 9/11, lunar landings or a tanker collision in Humberside.

Finally I agree with you on something.

Part of the "logic" behind the tariff policy is that this causes stock market falls which in theory would lead to investors seeking safety in buying US Government bonds pushing up their prices and thereby reducing their interest rate yields.

The US currency has $36 trillion of debt but $6.5 trillion of this debt is up for refinancing in June. Every basis point reduction in bonds equals a $1 billion saving.

Except instead what has happened is that investors have taken fright at the economic instability in the US and sold US bonds rather than buy them. As a side conspiracy theory China (the largest holder of US debt) may have been involved in the sell off as well but there is no easy way of showing this.

As a result bond yields have gone up meaning that refinancing the $6.5 trillion debt has actually become more expensive and not less. They rose 12 bps meaning an additional $12 billion in interest costs.

The twist though is that the sell off was based on economic uncertainty in the US, the reversal of some of the tariffs may have increased stock prices but they have done little to reverse the bond yield increases as the uncertainty remains:
https://www.reuters.com/markets/global-markets-tariffs-bonds-2025-04-09/

This is what I never understand . The American people are told they are in debt for billiions of dollars and they just seem to smile and nod. Who do they think they are in debt to? It's China or the ME. The US is such a country cut in half. The educated and the not so educated; the coast and the middle, the right and the left. They are blowing themselves up and leaving a huge gap there for China. Why? I will never know. Arrogance/ stupidity seem the obvious answers. Such a pity, that a country that had it all has ruined itself. Such a pity.