5 things to start your day

[Bloomberg]( The Fed dust has settled, trade wars and/or talks to resume in September, and more corporate earnings. Trump’s all (mad) about the Fed. Chairman Jerome Powell managed to give[ markets a thrill]( even though the quarter point cut he delivered was far from surprising. Powell discouraged investors from betting on a longer-term easing cycle, saying the modest cut was meant to [protect the economy’s expansion]( in a time when uncertainty around trade policy has been “more elevated than we anticipated.”  After wild swings as investors struggled to parse Powell’s message, markets ultimately gave it the thumbs down – and President Donald Trump was also not pleased. “As usual, Powell let us down,” Trump said in a [tweet](, having demanded a cut that is aggressive enough to fight the trade and currency [battles he’s waging](. Look for even more Trump-ire as the dollar flirts with an eight-month high and the European Central Bank leads others looking at their own paths to easing. Trade wars – err, talks – to resume in September. Speaking of the dragging trade war, Chinese and U.S. negotiators are set to meet again in early September, this time on American soil. The talks that ended earlier this week in Shanghai may not have produced much concrete progress but [Chinese state media]( called it at least a “pragmatic” step forward. The White House said the meetings were “constructive” and both sides agreed they broached the subject of U.S. agricultural goods (even if there were [no signs of](new purchases). [If that doesn’t inspire confidence]( for September meetings, consider the many other escalating disagreements between the world’s two biggest economies, over Hong Kong, the South China Sea, Taiwan and Huawei Technologies Co., to name a few. Sponsored by Daily Harvest Daily Harvest delivers perfectly portioned, chef-crafted food that’s ready to enjoy with one step and five minutes, max. Everything is built on organic fruits and vegetables and farm-frozen to lock in peak-season nourishment. Get $25 off your first box with code [FIVETHINGS]( (Valid for new customers only).  Earnings parade Earnings today are kicking off with Bombardier Inc. cutting its revenue forecast for the full year and Cigna Corp. guidance beating estimates. The next big names to report include Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., Yum! Brands, Inc. and Kellogg Co. (8 a.m. Eastern time) And after trading hours, look for results from Herbalife Nutrition Ltd., Pinterest Inc., The Chemours Co. and United States Steel Corp.  Earlier, [upbeat results]( from the likes of Societe Generale SA and Barclays Plc helped lead the European benchmark index higher. Markets Overnight the MSCI Asia Pacific Index dropped 0.6% while Japan’s Topix index eked out a 0.1% gain. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index was 0.5% higher at 6:08 a.m. led by financial shares after those solid bank results. S&P 500 futures pointed to a small gain at the open, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 2.042% and gold retreated. Coming up… Now the Fed is out of the way the next big thing is the July jobs report due out tomorrow, which will set the tone for the pace of activity in the second half of the year. But today isn’t a total bust – we have the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort data (9:45 a.m.), as well as numbers on U.S. manufacturing and construction (10 a.m.). What we've been reading This is what's caught our eye over the last 24 hours. - Five takeaways from [the Biden pile-on]( at last night’s Democratic debate. - Oil tankers’ tracking signals are [vanishing]( in the Strait of Hormuz. - Trying to [decode]( Trump’s dollar policy. - The streaming [video-on-demand war]( is going to get bloody. - Donald Trump gets his wall at last. [In Zimbabwe](. - Private equity is [coming]( for Europe's stocks. - Japan’s vision of co-working is [basically a phone booth](. And finally, here’s what Lorcan's interested in this morning There's a character called [Evadne Cake]( who appears in several of Terry Pratchett's discworld novels. Mrs. Cake has something called precognition, meaning she can see the near future. This makes conversations with people difficult as she often answers questions just before they are asked. If she replies and the person then decides not to ask the question, she gets a very bad headache. What we saw yesterday when the [Federal Reserve cut rates]( was the markets having a Evadne Cake headache. Yes, the FOMC did as the market expected with the rate cut, but the precognition/forward guidance demanded a clear signal of further easing. The market had been acting as if the Fed was entering an easing cycle. Jerome Powell's comment that this isn’t “the beginning of [a long series of cuts](” led to the [instant headache](. The Chairman described it as a "mid-cycle adjustment," raising comparisons with Alan Greenspan's mid-1990s rate cuts in order to prolong an economic upswing. There's one major difference between now and then for markets. Back then forward guidance (precognition) wasn't really a thing - in fact the Fed only started communicating it had made a rate decision at all to the public in 1994. So under Greenspan the move was the tool. For Powell, forward guidance is the tool, and the interest rate move is just the reinforcement of that guidance. By leaving the market confused as to what's next, or at least by not doing what was expected, the Fed chair risks damaging one of the bank's most potent tools - the one where it makes markets react to the move in advance. Like Bloomberg's Five Things? [Subscribe for unlimited access]( to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. 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