Arguably today's early weakness in stocks could be laid at the feet of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who, in his usual stoic manner, refused to confirm or deny any specifics about ongoing trade-talks with China, although he did say it is greatly in China's interest to come to the table (given the huge mismatch in their exports to the US) and also confirmed that talks with Korea and Japan were progressing... "We are continuing to make substantive movement on negotiations with many of our trading partners."

We are continuing to make substantive movement on negotiations with many of our trading partners.

The negotiations with our Asian trading partners are going very well; the negotiations with the Republic of Korea have gone very well; the @VP's negotiations with India went very… pic.twitter.com/GlhSSmEANc

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) April 28, 2025

We admit it's a little harsh to 'blame' Bessent as this weekend was largely 'news-less' on the tariff deal front (dashing the rampant expectations from last week) and this week also sees massive event risk with a whole lot of earnings, plus a fresh JOLTS report Tuesday morning which may provide some insight into the labor market ahead of Friday's more definitive April Payrolls report).