Donald Trump is tweeting more and it is affecting the bond market
President Donald Trump speaks when he receives a status report on Hurricane Dorian in the White House oval office in Washington, September 4, 2019.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
Donald Trump tweeted more, and it is affecting the bond market.
In fact, the president's market-moving tweets went bump in August when he hammered China on trade and went after the Federal Reserve on interest rates.
In an effort to quantify the effect of Trump's tweets on the bond market, JP Morgan devised a "Wolfe Index" to analyze how the president's tweets affect the volatility of US interest rates.
JP Morgan found that the index, named after Trump's infamous and still mysterious "covfefe" tweet, explains a measurable fraction of the implied rate volatility traits for 2-year and 5-year Treasurys.
"This makes rough sense as much of the president's tweets have been focused on the Federal Reserve, and as trade tensions are largely viewed as primarily affecting economic development in the short term, and in the same way The Fed's response to such a development, "the authors of the JP Morgan report wrote.
Trump's marketing messages often deal with trade and monetary policy, with key words including "China," "billions," and "products." These tweets are less likely to receive favorable responses, such as likes or retweets, from the president's supporters.
Trump's Twitter Habits
Since his 201[ads1]6 election, Trump has averaged more than 10 tweets a day to his nearly 64 million followers – a total of 14,000 in total during that period linked to his personal account, of which more than 10,000 happened after the inauguration in 2017.
Of the approximately 4,000 non-retweets that occurred during the market period from 2018 to the present day, only 146 moved the market.
Most of Trump's tweets come around 2pm, with a 13pm tweet about three times as likely to arrive at any other hour in the afternoon or evening, according to JP Morgan's report. [19659002] Trump's tweets from 3am are also more common than 3 p.m. 3pm, which can be a nuisance to US rates. Since the depth of the market can be thin overnight. The drum probably sleeps from 5:00 to 10:00 am, according to the report, since there is a short stay in the tweet activity during that time.
Days when Trump tweets a lot are also associated with negative stock market returns, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
While Trump's twitter activity may disrupt markets with sudden attacks on China trade or the Federal Reserve, he has still been good for the stock market overall. The Dow is up 42% since the 2016 presidential election and 31% since his inauguration.
"Trade talks, political campaigns and tweets have contributed to instability, from China to Fed policy to tax policy," wrote the brokerage's chief strategy Savita Subramanian.
"And new rates announced in August indicate disadvantages to our 2019/20 EPS growth forecasts of + 2% / + 7%, where indirect impact from hits on business or consumer confidence can be significant." [19659018]
