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Love him or hate him, Donald Trump is the President of the United States.
During the election campaign he made sexist, racist and discriminatory remarks in an attempt to get different sections of the American voting public onside.
His trademark "off-the-cuff" mass-communication style has made him relatable and extraordinarily popular.
But his main goal, right from his first election speech, has been to "make America great again".
That means more jobs, tax cuts for corporate America, tighter borders, and better trade deals.
So is he succeeding? Is he actually "delivering the goods" to his voters?
What if I told you a very wealthy, powerful collection of people are already starting to make up their minds about Donald Trump?
The crash in the Mexican peso predicted the Trump presidency weeks before the election. Now, however, it's the bond market (and the peso to a degree) that is predicting how long Mr Trump may last in the top job.
Bond market
Ok, very briefly, because I'm likely to lose you if you're not even vaguely interested in the bond market … but bonds are IOUs. You pay money and receive a piece of paper, with the promise that you'll receive an income stream (interest payments) while you hold that piece of paper.
The piece of paper is like an investment property, and the interest payments are the equivalent of rent.
The bond itself is what's called a "debt security". If you own a bond, you want the price of the bond to rise. Just like any other asset.
If you're looking to buy a bond, you'll hold out for a high interest rate.
That makes for an inverse relationship between the bond price and the yield. Confused? You're in very good company!
I only highlight that because I bring that concept up a little later in the piece. You don't really need to know why the yield and price move in opposite directions, but they do.
Market movements
The bond market is worth many trillions of dollars. The US bond market itself (in its various forms) is worth well over $10 trillion. It's one of the single largest markets in the world, and the biggest worldwide collection of debt.
The 10-year US Treasury bond is a benchmark debt security. It's like a term deposit in terms of an investment, except it's the US Government that wants your money, not a bank.
The thing about the 10-year Treasury bond market is that its movements tell a much bigger story. If the yield on the Treasury bond rises, it means that investors forecast better economic times ahead, and the need for higher interest rates. If the yield falls, investors are forecasting the opposite.
As you can see from the chart, the yield on the US 10-year Treasury bond market started to rise around the time Donald Trump won the election. It continued to rise for several weeks. Recently, however, the yield has fallen.
If it was the price of one house, or the price of a single stock, or even a collection of currencies moving in a particular direction, you'd be forgiven for being a little sceptical. This is different. This is trillions of dollars' worth of international and American debt saying something about Mr Trump.
What's it telling us about the Trump presidency?
I'm in danger of over-simplifying this but Mr Trump was elected to office to "make America great again". That means more jobs and higher living standards (especially for the Rust Belt).
His plan? Well as I mentioned above, he said he's going to bring back manufacturing, boost spending on infrastructure, and offer up some big corporate tax cuts as well.
While we've heard some evidence that there are plans in place to make some of these elements a reality, nothing as actually happened yet. And that's fair enough because these things take time. What's lacking though is detail.
The President has had a number of opportunities, including last week's speech to Congress, to deliver on detail, but he's failed to do that. So at this point, the bond market is making up its own mind about Mr Trump's likely success as a president, and it's far from encouraging.
Often markets turn first, then the economy, then, finally, voters. His followers have so far been incredibly loyal, but if there's evidence Mr Trump isn't going to bring back the jobs he promised, his days as president will be short-lived.
Sharemarket's still buying what Trump's selling
It's been fascinating watching Wall Street in recent weeks. Just when you thought the key stock benchmark index couldn't rise any further, it does. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has easily cleared the psychological 20,000 level, and seems to post fresh record highs every day.
It's clear the stock market still believes Mr Trump will deliver on his corporate tax cuts promises. In fact, any announcement short of what he's already promised would see the share market fall. In other words, his promises have been fully "priced in".
Sean Callow is a senior currency strategist with the Westpac Bank in Sydney. He told me last week it's unusual to see two major markets (the bond and stock markets) diverge so obviously on a single issue. Essentially the stock market thinks Mr Trump will succeed, and the bond market still needs convincing.
He told me, "something's gotta give". What he means by that is that either Mr Trump will deliver, and bond yields will rise again, or Mr Trump will fail, and the US stock market will correct.
I suspect a major market judgement on the presidency is imminent given the all-time highs the stock market is pushing, and the degree to which the bond market has pulled back.
Think of an elastic band stretching to its limit — that represents the current market tension around the presidency.
Mexican peso
The Mexican peso, US dollar currency pair is also telling a story.
The crash in the peso late last year was a throw forward to Donald Trump's election win. Would you believe it's since recovered? Quite a bit in fact. It's now approaching the level it was against the US dollar before the crash.
It's either reflecting the fact that Mr Trump won't hurt commerce between the US and Mexico as feared, or that he won't be in office for too much longer.
Watch the bond market!
There are three options: Mr Trump sees out two full terms in office; he serves just one term; or he's thrown out of office (replaced).
Markets are powerful. If trillions of dollars' worth of global funds continue to turn against the President, his chances of even making to the end of the first term are diminished.
The problem with winning an election on the back of big economic promises is that you open yourself to market judgement.
If the markets turn on Mr Trump, and the economy falters, Mr Trump's voters will start to question if he really can make America great again. If the populace turns on the President, he's finished.
Follow David Taylor on twitter at @DavidTaylorABC
Topics: donald-trump, markets, business-economics-and-finance, world-politics, united-states
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