Does Premature Expostulation Hurt Anyone?

There is a reason Jason Furman didn’t cite any specifics to back up his claim that “financial markets reacted” to President Trump’s tweet about Friday’s jobs report “with unusual volatility for the early morning hours” (“The Economic Risks of Trump’s Premature Tweeting,” op-ed, June 4). The reason is that they didn’t. In the 69 minutes between the tweet and the actual release, futures contracts on the S&P 500 meandered randomly in a narrow range of about one-tenth of a percent of the index’s value. The yield of the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond rose less than two one-hundredths of 1%, moving in the same direction and at the same pace as it had been all night.

The more notable aspect of Mr. Furman’s commentary is that it may mark the first time that a former Obama administration official has admitted that one of President Trump’s tweets was truthful.

Donald L. Luskin

CIO, Trend Macrolytics LLC

Chicago