Moody's Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi says the US economy

  • appears to be gagging on the uncertainty created by the haphazard economic policymaking happening in DC.

Zandi cites:

  • Retail sales, manufacturing production, real consumer spending, home sales and most telling, consumer confidence, are all down meaningfully in the past month or two

More at his tweet:

us economy gagging choking zandi

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Its easy as traders to get divorced from the economy. Of course, when making trading decisions depending on your time frame and/or approach considering the economy may not even enter your thinking. Which is fine.

The thing is, trading and running a business out there on main street can be quite different. if I think I've made a bad decision I can click a button and be out of a trade in a blink of an eye. I can jump into the next trade just as quick. Easy-peasy. But what if I've invested a couple of million in capital expenditure to a new piece of equipment. There's no quick exit button for that. Folks running a main street business have to think long and hard about expenditures, tisk, employing people ... and sometimes its easier, and indeed advisable, to just sit it out until the chaos is over.

You can always jump on some insider trading to generate some $$$ ;-) while awaiting the haphazard policymaking to pass:

Source: Forex Live