WASHINGTON, DC

IF YOU BLINKED, you probably missed it, but for about two minutes last week, stock markets around the world dropped by a third when computer trading programs realized that President Donald Trump had not announced any disruptive policies for sixty seconds.

“These computer programs – all AI – are viciously sensitive to political moves, especially those of The Donald, so when a minute went by and he hadn’t announced a tariff or a plan to annex somewhere, the machines went into overdrive and before you could bite your morning bagel, they were selling everything, and a brief panic ensued,” explained Bud Larry, a futures trader based in Singapore.

“Then the President said something weird again, and the computers realized it was business as usual and within a couple of minutes markets were back to where they had been. It was remarkable. Banks around the world are reprogramming their software to cope with breaks in Trump’s announcements, so this kind of thing is minimized.”