A terrible thought has ocurred to me regarding this apparent ongoing pump-and-dump scheme in the markets.

[Mister Ed]

As Trump's seemingly capricious actions bounce stocks up and down like a yo-yo, there are tremendous fortunes to be made by those who are privy to his next decision. Through proxies (if necessary), they could short stocks that they know Trump is about to crash, or buy stocks on a low dip if they know Trump is about to reverse a decision and send those stocks bouncing upward again.

It's occurred to me that one person who would absolutely insist on being kept in the loop would be...Vladimir Putin. If that's the case, then Trump's actions might well be helping to reverse Russia's long stretch of economic adversity.