
With Donald Trump’s trade war, the role of media in driving market prices has become explicit. Below is an image of the CNY/USD exchange rate with two sentiment moving averages superimposed. From 2017 to April 2018, media reports on the Chinese Yuan trended more positive, and the green shading between the two moving averages represents that trend. However, in April 2018 Trump began to beat the trade war drums about implementing tariffs. Initially these reports were seen as a bluff, but within two months it became clear they were not, and sentiment collapsed, following by the exchange rate. An image of