David Ader, Columnist

Markets Are Losing Their Patience With Trump

Last week brought “good” news, at least as far as markets are concerned, and poor performance. This is telling.

August 21, 2017 at 4:00 PM UTC

David Ader is the former chief macro strategist at Informa Financial Intelligence and held similar roles at CRT LLC and RBS/Greenwich Capital. He was the No. 1 ranked U.S. government bond strategist by Institutional Investor magazine for 11 years, and was No. 1 in technical analysis for five years.

Markets are starting to crack.
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

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I have been recommending a defensive stance in equities since at least February, and truth be told, that hasn’t worked out so well. The S&P 500 Index has returned 4.3 percent since then, including reinvested dividends. I’m not ready to throw in the towel.

What compels me to keep at it is the behavior of stocks at the close of last week -- after the big gain in University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, after the European Central Bank sounded a more dovish tone, after U.S. retail sales rebounded with strong upward revisions to past months, and after the ouster/resignation of chief strategist Steve Bannon from the White House.