Vanity Fair: “Traders in the Chicago pits have been watching these kinds of wagers with an increasing mixture of shock and awe since the start of the Trump presidency. They are used to rapid fluctuations in the S&P 500 index; volatility is common, of course. But the precision and timing of these trades, and the vast amount of money being made as a result of them, make the traders wonder if all this is on the level.”

“Are the people behind these trades incredibly lucky, or do they have access to information that other people don’t have about, say, Trump’s or Beijing’s latest thinking on the trade war or any other of a number of ways that Trump is able to move the markets through his tweeting or slips of the tongue? Essentially, do they have inside information?”

“Treasury Department officials are considering rolling back a tax rule aimed at preventing American companies from moving money offshore to avoid U.S. taxes,” Bloomberg reports.

“Treasury could narrow regulations aimed at preventing U.S. firms from lowering their U.S. tax bills by borrowing from an offshore branch of the company. The department is also contemplating repealing them entirely to replace them with something more business-friendly.”

President Trump claimed that stock markets would crash if he were impeached.

Said Trump: “If they actually did this the markets would crash Do you think it was luck that got us to the best Stock Market and Economy in our history. It wasn’t!”

“The Federal Reserve looks poised to cut interest rates for a second time Wednesday to help extend the economic expansion in the face of global weakness, President Trump’s trade war with China and geopolitical risks such as the attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities,” the AP reports.

“President Trump urged the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates below zero, suggesting a last-ditch monetary policy tactic tested abroad but never in America,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Trump’s request is extraordinary for several reasons. The United States economy is still growing solidly and consumers are spending strongly, making this an unusual time to push for monetary accommodation, particularly negative rates, a policy that the Fed debated but passed up even in the depths of the Great Recession.”

“Negative rates, which have been used in economies including Japan, Switzerland and the Eurozone, mean that savers are penalized and borrowers rewarded: Their goal is to reduce borrowing costs for households and companies to encourage spending. But they come at a cost, curbing bank profitability.”

JP Morgan has created “Volfefe” — a mashup of volatility and a certain “covfefe” tweet — an index to track the impact of President Trump’s tweets on the market, CNN reports.

“The analysts found that Trump’s tweets have significantly increased volatility. They say the frequency of market-moving tweets from Trump ‘ballooned’ in August, and that US rates markets are paying more attention. This drives the need for a model to spot market-moving tweets and track the results.”

Reuters: “U.S. congressional investigators have identified possible failures in Deutsche Bank AG’s money laundering controls in its dealings with Russian oligarchs, after the lender handed over a trove of transaction records, emails and other documents.”

“The congressional inquiry found instances where Deutsche Bank staff in the United States and elsewhere flagged concerns about new Russian clients and transactions involving existing ones, but were ignored by managers.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said issuing ultra-long U.S. bonds is “under very serious consideration” in the Trump administration, possibly setting up a move that would mark a historic revamp of the $16 trillion Treasuries market, Bloomberg News reports.

“President Trump stands to save millions of dollars annually in interest on outstanding loans on his hotels and resorts if the Federal Reserve lowers rates as he has been demanding,” the Washington Post reports.

“In the five years before he became president, Trump borrowed more than $360 million via four loans from Deutsche Bank for his hotels in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, as well his 643-room Doral golf resort in South Florida.”

“The payments on all four properties vary with interest rate changes.”

“President Trump held a conference call Wednesday amid a plunge in the stock market with three of Wall Street’s top executives — JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon, Bank of America Corp.’s Brian Moynihan and Citigroup Inc.’s Michael Corbat,” Bloomberg reports.

Financial Times: “The inversion of the U.S. yield curve, a measure investors view as the surest predictor of an impending recession, on Monday became deeper than at any point since the onset of the financial crisis a decade ago, as the U.S.-China trade war spread to the currency markets.”

“The difference between the yield on three-month Treasury bills and the benchmark 10-year bond, which has turned negative or ‘inverted’ before every U.S. recession of the past 50 years, widened to minus 32 basis points at its worst.”

Wall Street Journal: “The Federal Reserve is expected to say Wednesday it will reduce its benchmark interest rate by one quarter percentage point. That would mark just the fifth time in the past 25 years that the central bank switched from raising to lowering rates.”