Tariffs And Other Taxes

I heard three different reports this morning about how the fact that the stock market futures are down by 0.75% today shows that the President's China trade policy is a failure.  The only rational response to this drivel is "Huh?"  Think about it.  The market goes up and down every day.  Despite scores of people who tell us why it has moved (always after the fact), no one knows for sure.  A move of less than 1% is not unusual.  Sure, we would rather see the market up 0.75% than down 0.75%, but such a move is hardly a big one.  So there's really no reason why the usual sort of move down in the futures means much of anything.  It's certainly not proof of the effect of the China trade policy.  At most, it means that some money managers are nervous about trade policy, but even that is a big stretch given the actual evidence.

The reality is that we are many months away from knowing if the trade policy will ultimately succeed and the extent of such success.  All we have now are opinions from biased sources.  The reality is that anyone who "reports" that a normal-sized one day move in the stock futures is definitive proof, is actually someone who has a conclusion without proof and is looking for something, anything to try to bolster that position.