US dollar, bonds, equities have all been smashed in Asia morning trade – recap (so far)

Way back in March I posted on the question of Trump ending Fed independence:

• Is Trump building the foundations to fire Fed Chair Powell and other Fed members?
• “A political Federal Reserve risks weakening the US dollar’s reserve status”

Earlier in the session here (late US afternoon) this issue raised its ugly head again, check this link (scroll down a bit):

• Markets are now incorporating the risk to Fed independence into their tariff worries.

Alternatively, here is the screenshot with the info:

The response in markets has been what you would expect from threats to Fed independence:

• EUR, JPY, CHF all higher
• US bonds trashed
• US equities trashed

In the FX space, all of those three currencies I have listed in the first point are all viable reserve currencies. JPY and CHF are often seen as ‘safe haven’ alternatives, but you can add in EUR given the size of European financial markets (as long as they are;t playing up at the à la the various debt crises that descend on the ‘southern’ members from time to time.

For those not keen on swapping one fiat for another, gold is an alternative, its soared also.

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.