Bogus Rally Unites Powell and Trump

Well, there you have it: the most brazenly bogus rally in the history of the world. Are these guys good, or what? The fix was in even before Powell declared Wednesday afternoon that the Fed would be “patient.” (Nowthere’sa word that will reverberate through history!) AAPL’s and Boeing’s handlers had already gotten the jump on the Fed chairman’s latest PR mutterance, deftly engineering respective short-covering panics half a day ahead of him. It took patience, skill and timing to push Apple shares into their steepest rally in recent memory, considering this grim backdrop atop the front page ofTheWall Street Journal:Apple’s iPhone Troubles Persist. That would be putting it mildly.  Apple Inc. helped set hook for bears by announcing a day earlier that the company’s business had “stabilized” and that management believes things are bound to improve. (Cue up a global sigh of relief!)

Although the Fed’s momentous shift toward “patience” had been baked in the cake for at least a month, that didn’t stop the usual bandits and lunatics on Wall Street from acting as though this non-news were a revelation. But repeating it publicly for perhaps the fourth or fifth time still had the desired effect: Stocks went ballistic, the dollar got cheaper and everything seemed right with the investment world. Trump himself would not have changed a word of Powell’s speech. Recall that the news media had us believing for a while that the two were philosophical enemies. In fact, they are of a like mind when it comes to providing free money to any prospective inflator of assets who is not in prison. Their only difference is that while Trump lets the behavior of the stock market guide his monetary thinking, Powell pretends it is everythingbutthe stock market’s health that he cares about. Wednesday’s voracious bear rally undoubtedly will have pleased them both.

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