“As the stock market churned this week, President Trump anxiously called advisers both inside and outside the White House looking for validation that his talks with China were not driving the sell-off,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Fresh off what he described as a ‘historic’ weekend meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping, Mr. Trump has questioned why the markets weren’t reacting more positively to the news of his potential breakthrough with Beijing. In consulting with advisers, he remained convinced that the volatility wasn’t his own doing, but rather, the product of the Federal Reserve’s plan to raise the benchmark interest rate.”

“But investors—and many within his administration—saw it differently… Publicly, Mr. Trump has often dismissed market fluctuations as part of a natural correction, but several people close to the president say he places as much importance on the health of the Dow Jones Industrial Average for validation of his job performance as he does with his polling numbers.”

Barclays disagrees that the stock market would plummet if President Trump were impeached, Bloomberg reports.

Writes William Hobbs, head of investment strategy: “We doubt that capital markets would collapse if President Trump’s administration was endangered, either electorally or indeed legally. The forward momentum of the world economy, and therefore its capital markets, has little to do with the actions of the White House, past, present or future, in our opinion.”

“The top government official overseeing the $1.5 trillion student loan market resigned Monday, citing what he says is the White House’s open hostility toward protecting nation’s millions of student loan borrowers,” the AP reports.

“Seth Frotman is the latest high-level departure from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since Mick Mulvaney took over in late November. Under Mulvaney, the bureau has scaled back its enforcement work and has proposed revising or rescinding all of the rules and regulations it put into place under the Obama administration.”

President Trump took another swipe at the Federal Reserve in an interview with Reuters, expressing concern that the central bank is raising interest rates after years of holding borrowing costs near zero.

Said Trump: “I’m not thrilled with his raising of interest rates, no. I’m not thrilled. I should be given some help by the Fed.”

Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) has been arrested on insider trading charges lodged by the Justice Department, CNBC reports.

In a stinging and historically rare criticism, President Trump expressed frustration with the Federal Reserve in an interview with CNBC and said the central bank could disrupt the economic recovery.

“Presidents rarely intercede when it comes to the Fed, which sets the benchmark interest rate that flows through to many types of consumer debt. Fed officials, including Chairman Jerome Powell, have raised interest rates twice this year and have pointed to two more before the end of 2018.”

“The House voted to exempt small and regional banks from some of the most stringent rules put in place after the financial crisis, while also loosening some of the rules aimed at keeping the biggest banks from failing,” the Washington Post reports.

“The measure does not repeal the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, as some in the GOP had hoped, but it does represent the most significant scaling back of the rules to date.”

New York Times: “While the legislation offers little for the very largest banks, the Trump administration has already been working through the regulatory system to make things easier for them.”

An analysis by the Associated Press shows the nation’s six big Wall Street banks saved at least $3.59 billion in taxes last quarter, thanks to the recently enacted Trump tax law.