When Robert Rubin resigned as co-head of Goldman Sachs to join Bill Clinton’s White House in 1993, he found “a sort of rugby scrum to get up close to the president” in the Oval Office. Mr Rubin sat at a discreet distance: “I always liked to be away from the centre,” he wrote in his autobiography.

Gary Cohn, who has made the same move from Goldman to become director of Donald Trump’s National Economic Council, has no such reticence. He stood at Mr Trump’s shoulder as the president declared his determination to scythe back financial regulation and stimulate more lending by banks.

The stock market loved their promise to ditch the “over-regulation” of the Dodd-Frank Act. In case the message was not clear, Mr Cohn contested a supportive suggestion by Maria Bartiromo, the Fox Business presenter, that it was chiefly aimed at small banks. “Maria, I’m saying all banks have been shackled by these rules. Big banks, small banks, medium-sized banks.”