Week one of the Trump administration was, as advertised, full of excitement in financial markets — just not the kind of excitement most investors had anticipated.
The Trump trades that became so popular during the campaign last year — load up on U.S. stocks and the dollar, go light on international stocks and bet against Treasuries — only fared OK. U.S. stocks jumped, sure, but not as much as they did in Japan and Germany or even parts of emerging markets. The dollar tumbled and the Treasury bond market was calm all week, with most yields quietly grinding lower.
President Donald Trump conducted plenty of business in his first week in office, signing executive order after executive order, holding impromptu news conferences, mugging for the camera, crisscrossing the country, but it was the one thing he failed to do — immediately slap tariffs on U.S. trade partners — that triggered the surprising market response.
