Well, you know it’s in good hands:

“There’s no deadline for a decision, but one of the people familiar with the talks said the task force will not give Trump its final verdict until Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, finishes his research and comes to a conclusion himself.”

And the world can breathe again!

Dow tumbles into a bear market, down 20% from last month’s record close”

That ends an amazing bull market streak. The Dow was at about 8600 when Obama took office, and still below 20000 when Trump was inaugurated. Even now, after the turbulence of the past two weeks, the Dow is still 19% higher than when Trump took office, but that’s unexceptional. Take note how the two-termers (or more) were doing after one term:

  • FDR +237%
  • Clinton +106%
  • Obama +73%
  • Ike +65%
  • The Gipper +36%
  • Nixon +6%
  • Dubya -4%

Trump’s market was up 43% at its apex, but it’s worth noting that was still far short of Ike (69%), Clinton (55%) and Obama (53%) at the same point, 35 months into the presidency. It did beat Reagan, who was in the 30s for the same period.

The full eight-year stretch among those who served exactly two full terms is listed below. I don’t know how they view this on Wall Street, but on Sesame Street they say, “one of these things is not like the others.”

  • Clinton +229%
  • Obama +148%
  • Reagan +147%
  • Ike +124%
  • Bush the Younger -27%. (Bush was re-elected even though the stock market lost 4% in his first four years! Our confidence was well rewarded when the market lost even more in his second term.)

Four presidents have completed their time in office with the market down from when they were inaugurated:

  • Jimmy Carter -1%
  • Bush II -27%
  • Nixon -28%
  • Hoover -82%

These results closely mirror their popularity. The top three saw their approval ratings drop into the twenties at the nadir. There were no approval ratings in Hoover’s time, but ol’ Herbie didn’t even pull 40% of the popular vote in the 1932 election – and he was the incumbent president!

Full data by month here. (Very useful resource.)

Gallup’s Presidential approval ratings for comparison.

CNN’s recap:

People thought Michigan might be close. It wasn’t.

Bernie did so poorly in Mississippi that he probably won’t reach the 15% threshhold to receive proportionate delegates. Mississippi only sends 36 delegates to the convention, but that loss may end up being more costly than his defeat in delegate-rich Michigan, because Bernie may lose the Mississippi delegate count by 30, whereas he’ll probably only lose by a 20-25 delegate margin in Michigan with the proportionate split of that state’s 125 delegates.

Biden won by a landslide in Missouri

Biden will win Idaho by about six points

Bernie will win North Dakota by about thirteen

Washington is neck-and-neck. Bernie has a chance to win, but winning by a fraction does him no good because the delegates get split proportionally.