He's not even in the White House yet, and already the majority of the US public is critical of Donald Trump's performance.
An opinion poll by Gallup suggests that only 48% of Americans approve of the way Trump is conducting himself in the run-up to his inauguration as what the US media likes to refer to as “leader of the Western world”.
Not that Trump is likely to be too bothered. During his campaign, he discounted the accuracy of any opinion polls that did not show him winning, and seeing as he secured less of the popular vote than his rival, Hillary Clinton, in the election he is also unlikely to be fazed by his supporters apparently being in the minority.
The fellow seems to get the blame for everything.
Interesting piece from @thedailybeast on Trump – Macy’s Is Laying Off 10,000. Is It Donald Trump’s Fault? https://t.co/zzAcrh33cO
— Benjamin Chiou (@benjaminchiou) January 12, 2017
The Daily Telegraph reports that according to the Real Clear Politics' polling average, which looks at all the polls on the subject, Trump's approval rating stands at 42.7%, compared to President Obama's 55% approval rating.
Stop me if you have heard this before, but the US Environmental Protection Agency has accused a European car maker of fiddling the diesel emissions tests.
It's not Volkswagen in the dock this time, but Italian car maker Fiat Chrysler.
Fiat's shares plummeted yesterday on fears it could be hit with a massive fine.
EPA: Fiat Chrysler allegedly installed devices on Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Ram trucks to cheat on emissions. https://t.co/vdQa1u3Kec pic.twitter.com/55ip65hfFu
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) January 12, 2017
Oh well; Italian cars still have at least one fan in West Ham want-away player Dimitri Payet. Whether Payet has any fans is another matter ...
EXCLUSIVE PICTURES: Dimitri Payet leaves West Ham in his Ferrari today after telling Slaven Bilic he wants to quit https://t.co/jvC7TtQTJ6 pic.twitter.com/zGycdNaMOg
— MailOnline Sport (@MailSport) January 12, 2017
Payet, of course, is French, but presumably there are no French-made cars that are sufficiently ludicrously expensive to do justice to a man of his self-esteem.
Anyway, it turns out that he might be better off giving Renault cars a wide berth, as the Independent is reporting that the French authorities are investigating the French car maker to see whether it, too, has been involved in “gaming” the diesel engine emission tests.
Renault shares were off 3.2% in late morning trade. Fiat shares were up 3.2%.
On a more serious note, small cap investors are tuning in to the Iofina plc (LON:IOF) story after some good news from the iodine extractor.
The company saw a return to “more normalised” levels of production in the latter part of last month following lower than expected output in November and early December.
Output had previously been hit by an increase in fracking operations by its partners; Iofina extracts iodine from brine water taken from oil and gas wells in Oklahoma.