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The ups and downs of asset prices on any given day
are being determined, more and more, by the words
and actions of three men.
First, of course, is Donald Trump, who has redis-
covered his power to send markets soaring—or into
a tailspin—with less than 280 characters on Twitter.
Then there’s U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome
Powell, who repeatedly finds himself on the receiv-
ing end of nasty Trump tweets for abiding by his
mandate to do what’s best for the U.S. economy,
which isn’t necessarily always the same thing asF I N A N C E
3
Edited by
Pat RegnierBloomberg Businessweek August 12, 2019what’s best for the sitting president. And in Beijing,
it’s Xi Jinping, the president of China who sits atop
a Communist Party in which politicians and cen-
tral bankers famously sing from the same hymnal,
at least when the audience is outside observers.
The financial markets have been like a mosh pit
where these three players bang against one another.
Powell, under pressure from Trump to cut inter-
est rates aggressively, sent markets reeling by sig-
naling the central bank’s rate cut last month was
a “mid-cycle adjustment” and not the start of anThe Chaos Cycle
Powell speaks. Trump tweets.
China reacts. Markets freak. RepeatILLUSTRATION BY PATRIK MOLLWING