'Twas the Night Before Christmas (Trump edition) by Malia Lewis

’Twas the night before Christmas

When in the White House

The President tweeted,

Ignoring his spouse.

“No leader ever

has been so first rate.

I’m better than Santa

And America’s great!’’

He decided to nestle

All snug in his bed

While border wall visions

danced in his head.

When on the South Lawn

There arose such a clatter

He turned on Fox News to see

What was the matter.

When what to his wondering

Eyes in a daze

Came all his “best people’’

In three different sleighs.

Now Tillerson, Mattis

Now Kelly, McMaster,

Now Preibus and Sessions!

Trump said, “A disaster.’’

Now Flynn, Porter, Pruitt,

Hicks, Bannon, and Price,

Omarosa and Zinke!

Trump said, “They were nice.’’

Then a grand golden sleigh

It flew ’round the bend

Now Vladimir Putin . . .

Trump said, “My best friend.’’

Trump called Kellyanne,

She told him a rumor:

A fourth sleigh was coming,

Pelosi and Schumer.

Trump drew in his head

And was turning around,

When right down the chimney

Someone came with a bound.

Not Chuck and not Nancy,

His nose like a cherry,

A stranger appeared

A man legendary.

“My name’s Robert Mueller

I’m hardly an elf.’’

A prosecutor, special

In spite of himself.

And out of his bundle

A present appeared.

The label said “Report,’’

And Trump he just sneered.

“A witch hunt!’’ Trump yelled

As he came to the brink.

“Bah teetotaling —

Give me a drink!’’

He looked at the gift card,

Holding his beer.

The message said, “Open this

Sometime next year.’’

And so we will wait

To find what is inside

We’ll know who was good and

We’ll know who has lied.

The three Christmas sleighs

At once gave a whistle,

And away they all flew, like

The down of a thistle.

“The year’s almost over,’’

Trump said with a frown.

“It’s 2018 —

It’s time to shut down.’’

Malia Lewis is my daughter. She doesn't write about stocks much, but digs politics.

It is another weird day on the stock markets, with the huge rise on Wall Street propelling foreign markets upward for a while but then reality hit. Trump is still in office and still running the country on whim and spite, boasts and incompetence.

It only took a day for the good mood to lift.

The US shares were looking weak-kneed in pre-market trading here and were likely to open well down. Although as you can tell from my selection of my daughter's poem to begin, I do not credit the president telling people that it is “a buying opportunity” on the stock market for the rise yesterday. Some credit to the president for visiting the troops, despite having been a draft dodger with heel spurs himself during the Vietnam War (according to the NY Times) and a bit more for calling off his attack on Jerome Powell and the Fed for the moment. Or perhaps the credit goes to staffers who pushed for a change of rhetoric. The wall silliness continues to shut the government down. And how long before he starts being Trump again, is what investors abroad are asking.

Here are the facts on Dec. 26: The Dow Jones rose 1000 points or 4.98% which brought it to 22,878.45. The broader S&P 500 gained 4.96% to 2467.7. The tech-heavy Nasdaq did best, up 6.165 to 6262.77, boosted by Amazon which rose 9.4% on shopping data. Another gainer was Facebook which was tipped in a volte-face by short-seller Citron and went up 8.2%. The FAANGS overall added $185bn to their valuation, the best for nearly ten years.

The crackdown on depositary banks creating American Depositary Receipts without owning the required foreign equities has hit another big depositary bank, JP Morgan, which without admitting its guilt is paying a fine of $135 million to the US Securities & Exchange Commission, just to Nintendo be nice, I suppose. JPM was tipped today as the bargain stock for 2019 in wallstreetsbest.com.

Does the Boxing Day rally have legs? Is this buy-on-dips in a curtain call, or are we back in the bull market? I have no idea. But the dollar has fallen and gold is up in European markets. And most big-names of US shares were sold on the high of yesterday, overseas today.