At Naked Capitalism Yves Smith has held for a while that only ‘the markets’ can prevent U.S. President Donald Trump from further attacks on Iran.
‘The markets’ here are for one the bond market where any slump would mean lower treasuries, higher interest rates and problems for the U.S. to finance its debt. It is here where inflation hits Trump the most. Any interest increase is a political burden for Trump who has argued for the Federal Reserve to lower its benchmark interest rate.
But ‘the markets’ are also the stock market where Trump is privately engaged. A recent filing to the US Office of Government Ethics revealed that more than 3,600(!) transactions were made between January and the end of March on Trump’s personal account, which is (allegedly) handled by his sons through a brokerage:
The cumulative value of the trades ranged from at least $220 million (€188mn) to as much as $750 million (€641mn) as federal ethics disclosures only require broad valuation bands rather than precise figures.
…
Individual purchases of Nvidia, Microsoft, Broadcom, Amazon, Apple and others ranged from $1 million (€856,000) to $5 million (€4.27mn) in disclosed value while buy orders of AMD, Intel, Goldman Sachs, Alphabet, Airbnb, DoorDash, Micron, Bloom Energy and others ranged from $500,000 (€427,500) to $1 million (€856,000) in disclosed value.US President Donald Trump also reported hundreds of stock sales ranging from $15,000 (€12,825) to up to $25 million (€21.37mn).
According to the report, and assuming the holdings have remained relatively the same since the end of March, Trump is 20% or more in profit on almost all of the names indicated here and others.
Trump is heavily invested in those companies which deliver the hardware for the Artificial Intelligence bubble:
The account established new $1 million to $5 million positions in Broadcom (AVGO), Synopsys (SNPS), Cadence Design Systems (CDNS), and Texas Instruments (TXN), according to investing.com.
Notice the pattern. The account’s new multi-million-dollar positions are concentrated in the AI supply chain, not in the hyperscalers that dominate headlines.
These are the companies that sell into the AI buildout, the picks-and-shovels names that benefit regardless of which cloud or model wins.
Trump is personal hyping stocks he had bought:
The most attention-grabbing trade in the filing is Dell Technologies (DELL).
The account bought DELL on February 10 in the $1 million to $5 million band, then added smaller positions throughout March, per Fortune. It never sold a share.
On May 8, at a Mother’s Day event at the White House, Trump told the audience to “go out and buy a Dell.” The stock surged as much as 14.6% intraday and closed up roughly 12%, hitting an all-time high of $263.99.
Dell is now up about 107% year-to-date, …
One may call this corruption and insider trading which should be banned.
But it has also a positive side.
As long as Trump is politically (through the bond market) and personally (through stocks) bound to rising markets he will likely avoid anything that might lead to a large tumble of bond and stock values or even a crash.
Another big attack on Iran, and Iran’s inevitable retaliation, would likely lead to a market crash and sever personal losses for Trump.
That may well be the one and only thing that is holding him back.