Go Long.

First of all, this is about the most hilarious news imaginable:

• SEAN HANNITY NAMED AS COHEN CLIENT WHO OBJECTED BEING NAMED

If I had to guess, this is about to get immeasurably worse for Trump. As for Fox and all of your favorite alt-Right blogs that parrot Fox’s “news” stories (you know, like the man-eating pandas), Sean’s going to need you to go long.

Well, I guess Sean Hannity is going to be trending for the rest of the week. pic.twitter.com/Bppzc694o6

— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) April 16, 2018

“We have been friends a long time. I have sought legal advice from Michael,” Hannity said on Monday, after he was unmasked on orders from a judge. Here are some headlines from an interview he did this afternoon:

• HANNITY: COHEN TALKS NEVER INVOLVED MATTER BTWN ME, 3RD-PARTY
• HANNITY SAYS COHEN `HAS NEVER REPRESENTED ME IN ANY MATTER’

Ok Sean, but my guess would be we’re all going to be hearing a lot more about this going forward and the optics aren’t great here.

Also on Monday, Trump made a complete ass of Nikki Haley by essentially calling her a liar. She said over the weekend that the U.S. would be announcing further sanctions on Russia today, but according to the Washington Post, the administration called the Russian Foreign Ministry on Sunday and informed them that additional sanctions weren’t actually in the works.

That was good news for the ruble. Here’s an annotated chart going back to last week’s Trump tweet about missiles:

It also boosted the Russia ETF:

Trump apparently wants to start a currency war now, just to complete the trifecta (trade war, shooting war, currency war). This morning, in a truly bizarre tweet, the President accused China and Russia of playing “devaluation games” despite the fact that the yuan has appreciated against the dollar for five straight quarters and despite the fact that recent ruble weakness is the direct result of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.

That’s not to say we think it was wrong to sanction Russian entities and persons, it’s just to say that if you’re going to sanction them and those sanctions end up hitting the currency, you can’t then turn around and pretend like you have no idea why the currency is falling. Or I guess you actually can “pretend” you have no idea if you’re Trump because in all likelihood, he’s not pretending. What can we tell the Kremlin other than: you brought this on yourself in more ways than one.

only President Dennison would drive another country's currency lower with sanctions and then a week later call that depreciation "unacceptable".

it's so epic and it's a great self-own by Russia. America is looking at Moscow like: "don't look at us man, you did this to yourself"

— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) April 16, 2018

Trump’s comments were also bizarre considering the Treasury declined to name China a currency manipulator on Friday in their semi-annual report. According to Danske Bank’s Allan von Mehren, Trump’s tweet “could signal the possible announcement of extra tariffs on $100b Chinese goods.” That would be the extra tariffs Trump proposed earlier this month to much fanfare and to much consternation from Beijing.

Oh, and he also nominated Pimco’s Richard Clarida, as Fed vice chair.

Somehow, U.S. equities managed to rally through all of this (I mean, not all of it is bad, it’s just a lot to digest), apparently on hopes that “one-off” means “one-off” when it comes to Syria or maybe just because it’s Monday.

Using the chart of Walgreens and CVS below, spot the moment when this headline hit:

• AMAZON BUSINESS IS SAID TO SHELVE PLAN TO SELL DRUGS: CNBC

The dollar fell on the day and the offshore yuan strengthened past 6.27.

More flattening – because why not? 2s10s, 5s30s multi-year lows (again):

Oil declined from a three-year high in choppy trade (we’ll call it “easing geopolitical tensions”):

Overnight, Chinese shares declined as mainland markets awaited GDP…

…and investors ponder the prospect of higher rates and tightening in Hong Kong amid enormous pressure on the HKD band.

Finally, for your moment of zen, here is Alex Jones pretending to have a nervous breakdown because Trump bombed Syria…