Cities Upon Hills And Castles In The Sky

The presidential Twitter feed was cranked up to “max batshit” on Friday as Trump desperately tried to deflect criticism. He also canceled an expected trip to London citing Obama even though the reference was in fact to a Bush-era decision.

Trump was kind enough to give Iran one “last chance” to comply with an agreement they’re already complying with. “Today, I am waiving the application of certain nuclear sanctions, but only in order to secure our European allies agreement to fix the terrible flaws of the Iran nuclear deal,” a statement read. “This is a last chance.” Again, that makes zero sense because according to literally everyone except Trump, Iran is in compliance with the deal.

Meanwhile, as Trump waived nuclear sanctions, Mnuchin issued new sanctions on Iranians the Treasury says are guilty of “serious human rights abuses and censorship in Iran.” You know, “censorship” – like when you try and change the libel laws to sue journalists for telling the truth about you. That kind of “censorship.”

Speaking of Mnuchin, he talked about taxes and Bitcoin Friday morning over breakfast in Washington. You can read all about that here.

We got CPI this morning and that was a beat which initially stoked concern among equity investors regarding the extent to which upward pressure on inflation might prompt the Fed to get more hawkish. It’s the whole “good news is bad news” thing. Fortunately for everyone riding the wave, stocks shook it off as the post-CPI Treasury selloff subsided:

Stocks (or, as they’re now known, “egregious sky castles”) were sharply higher on the week and have had their best start to a year since 2003.

2Y yields topped 2% for first time since September 2008 following the CPI beat:

5s30s had its first close below 51bp since 2007: