As Trump tries to deflect his role as the unspoken leader of the violent right extremism, his attacks on China and threats of more tariffs are hurting the economy. Today, the stock market is plunging.
Trade bellwethers Caterpillar and Boeing dropped 3.6% and 3%, respectively. Semiconductor stocks like Micron Technology, Skyworks Solutions and Advanced Micro Devices fell at least 4.7%.
Apple shares slid 5.4%. Nike dropped 3.1%. Retail stocks like Etsy, Abercrombie & Fitch and Stitch Fix all fell at least 6.9%. Office Depot slid 7.8%. Party City fell 5.6%. Macy’s and Best Buy pulled back 5% and 4.8%, respectively. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) traded 3.2% lower. FedEx dropped 5.2%.
Stocks tumbled Monday, with Wall Street joining a global equity selloff seen after China allowed its currency to fall to a more-than-10-year low versus the dollar after President Donald Trump rattled markets by announcing additional tariffs on Chinese goods late last week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -3.23% was down 823 points, 3.1%, at 25,658, while the S&P 500 SPX, -3.27% declined 92 points, also 3.1%, to 2,839. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -3.81% shed more than 300 points, hitting 7,699, a decline of nearly 4%, as China-sensitive tech stocks came under pressure. The steep sell-off came just one trading day after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq had their biggest weekly declines of 2019.
Okay, but Trump has made these tariff threats before. Whgat is different?
Until last week, market participants had been able to “compartmentalize” the U.S.-China trade war, said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National, in a phone interview. Investors were aware of the continued trade tensions, but were reassured that negotiations were continuing and that neither side was prepared to escalate, he said.
That changed Thursday when Trump announced 10% tariffs on $300 billion of imports from China to take effect on Sept. 1 and was compounded when China allowed the yuan to drop.
“The escalation of the U.S.-China trade war puts us in a place where it’s almost impossible to calculate the collateral damage,” Hogan said. That’s likely to continue to cast a cloud over the market unless there are signs of a de-escalation.
The S&P 500 dropped 3.1% last week. The Dow had its second-biggest weekly drop of 2019 last week, sliding 2.6%.
So the ONE thing that Trump had going for him in the 2020 elections — is going south.
UPDATE: At market close, Dow is down 767 points.
BREAKING: Stocks have worst day of 2019 with Dow plunging more than 760 points, Nasdaq sliding nearly 3.5% and S&P falling nearly 3%. – CNBC
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) August 5, 2019