WTF is happening now?

Your daily review of what happened since the last time we talked.

> Trade war:  Reports coming out of the US-Japan trade negotiations were not promising, with the Japanese delegation pulling out of talks before coming to an agreement. 

> DOW:  As of this writing (midnight), the US markets are getting absolutely hammered. The DOW is down 2.7% (1,050 points) to 38,085 and the NASDAQ is doing even worse in the first day of trading after the Easter long weekend. EDIT: The DOW is down 1250 points now.

> Gold:  Up almost 3% ($100/ounce) to $3,412. Is this a flight-to-safety from American assets after Trump threatened the US Federal Reserve’s independence? 

> US Dollar:  The US Dollar continues to slide versus other major currencies--like the Euro--and there’s a big increase in the number of stories wondering aloud whether the US Dollar is “at risk of a confidence crisis?” 

MB bottom-line: More financial chaos, and more signals that the US lacks a central strategy in this high-stakes game that it’s playing. Internationally, the world is pulling back from the US in ways that are immediate (cancelling travel plans, boycotting goods) and long-term, and the rhetoric coming from the US and China is clearly setting up another Cold War-like world order, organized by allegiance to one of the two powers. The tit-for-tat economic war rages on. 

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