There is very little evidence that markets care much at all about what happens in Washington. If Trump resigns or doesn't it is very unlikely to have a lasting

There is very little evidence that markets care much at all about what happens in Washington. If Trump resigns or doesn't it is very unlikely to have a lasting effect on equity prices. There's lots of evidence to back this up. When JFK was assassinated for example, equity prices rose in the weeks after. This does not suggest that the equity markets didn't like JFK necessarily, but rather that equity markets were primed to move higher and even extreme uncertainty around the presidency wasn't enough to alter their course. Prices are going to go where they are going to go. It makes some people happy to imagine markets disliking Trump, but the truth is they don't really care who is president, they only care about whether earnings are going to go up or down in the future, and the president just doesn't have much control over that save for tax rates which have already been accounted for in this administration. The Fed is far more likely to impact equity markets, but I think far too many (Wilson included) are too focused on the trend in rates without any consideration at all for the relative level of rates historically. It is true that a rising trend in rates is usually bearish for stocks, BUT it's very important to understand the trend in a broader context. Rates are still extremely low in a historical context and if the Fed pauses in 2019 and employment and consumer spending remain strong, stocks aren't likely to drop much more simply because 3% is not a satisfactory return for most people unless you are nearing retirement. So where else are you going to park your money? Probably stocks. Also, a company like Apple isn't going to be drastically effected by marginally higher rates when they were already close to zero. Sure, their cost of capital might go up by a quarter a percent. Is that really going to move the needle on their earnings significantly? Other companies that aren't profitable and heavily reliant on debt probably will be hurt, though. Here's what I believe is happening: the Fed did a very poor job of communicating its position and intent in late 2018 (probably because they themselves didn't know what they were going to do) and spooked the markets by saying they were going to hike several times in 2019. They then walked this back but the markets are still a bit uneasy. Sentiment always follows price, and now that prices have fallen and volatility has spiked, what are the pundits doing? Predicting price declines and higher volatility! Well, that's already happened so if you are selling stocks now and paying up for VIX calls, you're probably late to the party. In early 2018, most pundits were saying to buy stocks.