Wall Street traders are tuning out Trump after lies about China trade phone calls: report

President Donald Trump has been known to move the stock market hundreds of points with a single tweet. But that may prove more difficult for him going forward.

According to Business Insider, some traders are now deciding to tune out the president's daily news about the economy, since it's so subject to change and may be an outright fabrication.

"I already think we're less responsive to these kinds of claims, but not entirely so," said Oanda senior market analyst Craig Erlam in an email to Markets Insider. "As ever with these things, it's difficult to know to differentiate between truth, lies, and exaggeration. Markets will often give more credence to reports that have come from credible sources or been verified but there are circumstances like this when we're left guessing."

Han Tan, a market analyst for FXTM, told Business Insider that anything Trump says should be viewed "with the utmost caution" because there is no indication from the administration that they plan to pull back from the trade war. "Investors are well aware that multiple rounds of trade talks have only led to the current dismal situation, whereby repeated tariff threats have become the norm," he said.

One recent tipping point was the president's tweet earlier this week that he had just undergone high-level phone calls with China on trade — which reversed a 600-point drop of the Dow Jones the week before. It soon transpired, however, that no such calls had taken place — and White House officials admitted the president may have lied to deliberately boost the stock market.

Some legal analysts, including conservative lawyer George Conway, have argued that if Trump intentionally manipulated markets with his lie, it would be a violation of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act.