But it will still be a challenge for the hedge fund manager to keep both the markets and Trump happy.

BY JAMES SUROWIECKI @JAMESSUROWIECKI

Scott Bessent, founder and chief executive officer of Key Square Group LP. Photo: Getty Images.

When Donald Trump announced Friday that hedge fund manager Scott Bessent was his pick for Treasury secretary, there was a massive sigh of relief from the markets, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury falling sharply (a sign that investors think Bessent will help keep inflation cool) and the stock market getting a little bump.

Bessent is a long-time veteran of the investing world—among other things, he was chief investment officer for Soros Fund Management in the early 2010s—and his hedge fund, Key Square, is a macro fund, meaning he’s thoroughly versed in global macroeconomic trends. Bessent’s politics also seem to be rather conventionally Republican—pro-deregulation, pro-fiscal-discipline, pro-strong-dollar—which Wall Street typically likes. All things considered, he’s about as good a choice as one could have hoped for from Trump.

The fact that Trump picked Bessent was not exactly surprising—he was one of the president-elect’s economic advisers during the campaign, and was identified as a front-runner for the job weeks ago. But Bessent’s........

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