Donald Trump has to this point despatched comparatively fewer market-moving social media posts since being re-elected than throughout his first time period in energy, a examine by US funding financial institution JPMorgan has estimated.
The financial institution’s analysts discovered that solely 10% of the 126 posts Trump had revealed this time round on delicate subjects akin to commerce tariffs, overseas relations and economics had triggered clear forex market strikes.
The numbers are selecting up although. Final week he despatched greater than 20 posts linked to these points, double January’s common. That, nonetheless, continues to be properly beneath the 60-a-week he peaked at throughout his 2018-19 commerce rows with Mexico and others.
“Among the different topics, the posts on tariffs have been the biggest market movers,” JPMorgan’s notice revealed on Monday stated, including that nearer to a 3rd of these ones had been market shifting.
The most important impression to this point has been the greater than 2% and 1% falls in Mexico’s peso and Canada’s greenback, respectively, seen initially of February when President Trump posted he had used emergency powers to implement 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada – a transfer he postponed two days later.
Others targeted on China in the meantime have triggered strikes in each instructions relying on their tone.
The yuan dipped after President Trump threatened tariffs over fentanyl provide shortly after his re-election. However the forex additionally rose in mid-January after the Trump stated he had “a very good” cellphone name with China’s President XI Jingping.
JPMorgan’s analysts stated their backtesting confirmed that buying and selling on President Trump’s posts wouldn’t have been very worthwhile both to this point.
Shopping for the greenback versus a basket of G10 excessive beta currencies, or essentially the most directly-impacted particular person forex for between 5 and 180 minutes after every put up would have been “disappointing” they stated, estimating not more than a 4% acquire even below “highly optimistic” assumptions.
Whereas President Trump is sending fewer market shifting social media messages at this stage, he has stepped up direct communications from the Oval Workplace with almost-daily query and reply periods with journalists.
