It’s All About Who You Know

YOU have just become the big winner of the latest reshuffle of White House personnel. No, this is not the result of your own Machiavellian skills in intrigue, backstabbing, and betrayal. You have ME to thanks for this development.

Sometimes it seems that there is no corner on earth I haven’t visited, no event I didn’t know about in advance, and no organization where I don’t already have an intimate contact. Today is one of those days. That’s what I felt upon learning that my friend, Anthony Scaramucci, had been appointed White House communications director. I have known Anthony for many years, known to his friends as “the Mooch.” (see my last piece on him below).

I can tell you with total certainty that communications between the White House and the press are about to become polite, civil, and professional. His predecessor, Sean Spicer, was rude, offensive, reviled by the press, and endlessly parodied on Saturday Night Live, to devastating effect. Apparently, he resigned after a furious shouting match with the head guy there.

The upgrade could change the entire way the financial markets view the White House.

After five decades flitting in and out of the upper echelons of power around the world, I can tell you that it is incredibly useful to know people at the top when you’re a trader and investor.

It’s not because they hand over any kind of precious inside information. It’s all a matter of learning the code words they speak.

That’s how, after attending Janet Yellen’s economics classes at UC Berkeley, I was able to translate her cautious, measured, and introspective comments into a string of winning Treasury bond (TLT) Trade Alerts that ran for years.

Anthony should be able to provide me with similar insights, no matter how indirectly he does it. Insights we will need in spades, because this market is getting trickier by the day.

I hate to belabor the points I made earlier this week in highlighting the current elevated levels of risk in the markets. But I’ll do it anyway.