Toon Time.

Well, here it is Wednesday afternoon and since the close of business on Tuesday we’ve learned that Donald Trump is building a literal space army and also that Larry Kudlow will now be effectively in charge of U.S. economic policy.

We are living in a cartoon.

Which is exactly what lots of folks warned would probably happen around this time last year.

C’est la vie.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE SECRETARY OF STATE pic.twitter.com/0CouhAMXMJ

— James Felton (@JimMFelton) March 13, 2018

Retail sales were a disaster in the U.S. and that doesn’t bode well for the economic outlook. Here’s the obligatory embedded Atlanta GDP Now tweet:

The updated #GDPNow estimate in Q1 2018 is 1.9%. Click to learn more from the #AtlantaFed https://t.co/8GAmzWvh8E pic.twitter.com/ZJK2fXzGdv

— Atlanta Fed (@AtlantaFed) March 14, 2018

Stocks were sharply lower on Wall Street. This is three straight days of losses for the S&P:

Since Rexit:

3% on 10s looks increasingly remote:

It’s starting to seem like stocks are worried more about a recession than they are runaway inflation – curve is starting to flatten pretty aggressively:

Here’s the dollar on the day (interpretations welcome):

Crude was all over the place after the EIA report sent conflicting signals (products draw, crude build, production up):

Russian stocks were sharply lower because the Kremlin is poisoning people again and it turns out the international community frowns on that (who knew?).

U.S. BELIEVES RUSSIA RESPONSIBLE FOR NERVE AGENT ATTACK: HALEY

Trump: "ok, who wants to be my new UN ambo?"

— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) March 14, 2018

European shares were lower for a second day, fading into the close although the DAX did manage to eke out a gain. Here’s a two-day snapshot that captures the Rexit-related declines.

Overnight, markets were on edge despite the apparent resilience of the Chinese economic machine. As noted first thing this morning, both Hong Kong and mainland shares were lower, suggesting that for the time being, trade jitters and worries about the Trump administration’s foreign policy slant are driving sentiment.

Small caps were hit especially hard on the mainland:

Bitcoin is all to hell – it’s down something like 21% in March and Wednesday’s declines are tied to Google’s decision to crack down on cryptocurrency ads, a positive development for reasons that should be obvious (hint: the whole space is a joke), but in case they’re not, you can read more here:

Nobody even cares anymore:

You had a good run but you’re fired now, kid. Get the fuck off my lawn. pic.twitter.com/NIqBAzdyjK

— James Felton (@JimMFelton) March 13, 2018