It's been clear for a while that a recession is coming. Experts claim it will be 2020, but I'm not so sure it won't start earlier. The signs are here: not only an inverted curve, but also slowing home sales, rising interest rates, lower manufacturing in cars particularly.
Trump doesn't help at all, with his wishy-washy flip-flop declarations. I eagerly await the day he is gone from office.
8
Trump is incompatible with the stability necessary for businesses to plan into the future.
Anyone that thinks you can have a pathological liar using the presidency for his own personal benefit and that it will be good for the economy or the stock market is delusional.
We are in a race against time. Either Trump will be removed from office, or we will have the greatest recession ever.
14
"Tariff man" lives in the 1890's.
4
If the stock market were a person its recent gyrations might earn it a diagnosis of bi-polar disorder, rapid cycling type. Markets react to more than just earnings and interest rates. They respond to leadership and the moods and emotional stability of those who govern. It may not be coincidence that the stock market drops 800 points at the time one of its most mature and stable leaders is being laid to rest - Is this a way for the market to express its sorrow and sadness for this loss as well as a worry about our country's future?
2
Now he's referring to himself in the 3rd person. Great! How long before the other 10 persons he has babbling inside his head show up at the dance?
Will this nightmare never end?
8
Thanks, Trump. Your ill-considered remarks cost me over $5K yesterday.
Tariffs should only be a tool in negotiation, not a goal in themselves. It's clear that Trump doesn't understand how to use them, other than as a battering ram.
For a guy who claimed he likes free trade, this makes no sense.
9
@Barbara He lies all the time. You still believe anything he's ever said?
Best strategy: Assume anything Trump does will help his own bottom line, or will stroke his own ego even if it doesn't, or both. Assume it will probably adversely affect whatever elements of the economy are involved, as long as it doesn't affect Trump businesses. Then play your stocks accordingly. You might make as much on tumbles as on climbs, maybe more.
3
And for all you Trumpites out there who feel Trump is going to make your life better......now these corporations, making "record profits", have all the ammunition they need to say to the workers "Gee, we'd like to help you out, but the future doesn't look so rosy anymore, so we have to think of the well being of the corporation. Maybe next near." They got their windfall. Looks like you will miss out once again. But I am sure Trump will hit the trail to tell you to just hang in there, it's coming. It's coming all right, but I think the word you need to look for to describe yourself is "fool". But you won't, will you. You'll just sit there and take it. Because he be da man.
10
Emperor Trump would be closer to the truth if he called himself ‘Tyranny Man’ domestically and wannabe global Emperor abroad.
As the late great Hannah Arendt warned, “Empire abroad entails tyranny at home” which no Empire, overt or disguised, has ever in history avoided.
The ‘next to the last’ Soviet Empire — which was called the “Evil Empire” (aren’t they all, Ronnie?) — has been succeeded by this disguised global capitalist Empire, which is only nominally HQed in, and merely ‘posing’ as, our formerly promising and sometimes progressing country.
Never has it been so obvious to so many that a faux-Emperor has, somehow, “Occupied” the Whitehouse.
‘We the people of America’ — which became a country by expunging an Empire in our first “Revolution Against Empire” [Justin du Rivage] — need to be ‘woke’ to the need to continue and complete the task our founders began.
3
I wonder if any Trump Family LLC investments make money with PUT/Calls off of Tweets?
3
Tariff is tax and Trump is a tax man after all and he gets it both ways- Tax cut and tax man dazed every one including himself to make America Confused Again.
2
Tariff Man has no clothes. MAGA Man has no clothes; where is the new infrastructure, the jobs, the building projects? The fake emperor has no clothes.
5
puts tariffs on Canadian products as Canada is a security threat to the US.Hard to believe.
4
The Tariff man's wealth was created through Freud. He deflated the price of the real estate Properties he inherited from his father.
To avoid paying over 500 million in taxes. He is the classic case of a 419 mastermind. Most of the financial knowledge he has is at illicit schemes. Knowing this he probably already cashed out of the stock market. Now pay attention after the so called correction he goes in again. Making billions of dollars. When he finally leaves of office I can bet "The tariff man" which I think should be his name would be wealthier. At which point he would gladly show his tax returns.
1
Tariff Man = Tax Man. I thought Republicans were all about lower taxes. I guess not.
18
@DS Depends on who is being taxed.
2
"Make America Rich Again"? (MARA) I'm a"Tariff Man"? "Make America Great Again"? (MAGA)
Such slogans are the best this President has ever offered the country. Every other utterance rolls downhill from there.
This President has improved the economy of the wealthy and large corporations with an enormous tax reduction. But in doing so, he made up for that missing tax revenue by passing it onto the working class, through higher taxes, further raiding Social Security and reducing Medicare and Medicaid.
According to Pew Research, the actual purchasing power of Americans has not increased in 40 years. The wealthy were not required to reinvest their tax reduction in employees, training, preparing for a world of new technology, so, they kept it and enriched their investors.
Now, Trump's tariffs are hurting his base -- Boeing, Caterpillar, auto manufacturers, farmers, and small business owners. He has turned allies into "national security threats", that is, Canada, Europe, Mexico and China, simply because we import from them.
Clearly, this is an abuse of his executive power. Tariffs, according to the Constitution, can only be levied by the House, which overwhelmingly voted against them in June. Trump played his "national security" card and began his brutal tariff agenda.
Congress can overrule his "executive authority" on tariffs, with a 2/3 vote from each house. I think they may be ready.
16
One has to wonder if Trump has been manipulating the financial markets all along as President for the benefit of his "friends".
14
Market correction has been long overdue. Enough of the boogeyman business.
3
@Indy voter Yes the market has been long overdue for a "correction". But Trump is also a bogeyman because he is the titular head of a very powerful office but hasn't a clue about what he is doing.
2
Twitter should take away his account, because his daily tweets is hurting the country and therefore it's a matter of national security
17
@TL
Added benefit: everyone will sleep better at night knowing he can't start fires w early morning tweet litter. This guy is exhausting.
3
Trump doesn't want a $50M penthouse from Trump. He wants the destruction of the United States of America and Trump's his man. You don't get a corrupt guy who has had at least 4 or 5 personal bankruptcies elected to the presidency for nothing.
3
As a small business owner with a handful of employees, I am now bracing for the next downturn. I'll close up shop, have my guys collect unemployment and any other government handout they can get.
Meanwhile I'll sit back with a bitter taste in my mouth. Wondering why no politician on either side of the aisle has stood up to this buffoon as he does everything he can to derail the train we are all on.
21
@frank w, at least some Democrats have done what they can as the gerrymandered minority. Let's see what happens in January when they get the House and at least a portion of the power they've earned and we voted for.
6
It sounds like the US trade agreement with China is about as solid as its agreement with North Korea about nuclear arms.
14
To summarize NYT reader comments:
The US should just lie there and continue to live with unbalanced trading relationships because standing up for the US is scary and will upset someone, somewhere.
3
@Ken Twitter rants and lying press releases are not fixing the economy. Trump needs to fix what's broken and stop complaining instead of correcting past mistakes. Whiners always lose. What positive good has Trump done for the economy of the average American?
3
And this is the darling of the US Chamber of Commerce! Jeez, how do these guys wake up and look themselves in the mirror and like what they see?
7
Trump's numbers tower over European counterparts despite overwhelmingly negative coverage
3
@BO Krause Some specifics, please. Not counting Macron.
8
@BO Krause Numbers of what? Lies? distorted facts? alternate realities? weight? (sorry, that was ad hominem) please enlighten us, what numbers. thanks.
5
Trump says he's a "Tariff man". Problem is, tariffs, according to the Constitution, must be levied by the House of Representatives. They voted against Trump's tariffs by an overwhelming majority in June.
So he moved to plan B -- call iron and aluminum imports, and potentially any or all products from from Europe, Canada, China or Mexico a threat to U.S. national security, using his executive privilege, and place tariffs on them.
This at a time when, if not the average American's budget, that of the overall national economy is soaring. The DOW's and other trading markets' recent 2-day drop is because of Trump's continued insistence on tariffs.
With these "National Security tariffs", Trump also labels our long-time allies as security threats. China, being a non-transparent, Communist government could possibly be called a threat, if there were any indications that they were going to attack the U.S., but there aren't.
Trump keeps using the "National Security" card to have his way. He can be overruled by a 2/3 majority in Congress. Both houses of Congress are not particularly happy with his trade moves. They must exercise their power to check the Executive and vote down the tariffs
11
As before, he doesn’t like the attention a funeral will have.. again he does something to distract the nations, the worlds attention. I don’t know how he will be able to sit at tomorrow’s services quietly, while everyone else’s attention will be not on tiny little man but on a dead president. I don’t think he’ll be able to bear the many positive things being spoken about the deceased. We’ll just have to see, as he often states. Sad, very sad, sad.
17
It is all about “updating”/“revising “ nineteenth century's [e.g. William Stanley Jevons ] utilitarian principles ,fundamentals of any Theory of Political Economy [en Vogue ].
In a somewhat satirical way revisiting the “ Monroe Doctrine “
[ notwithstanding ratification legally ,by mutual understanding
implemented somewhere ,sometime...].
Sounds like it's time for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to get involved - as "Individual 1" uses his Twitter platform in a way that moves markets. Hmmm, isn't that illegal? Tariff Man, really? What a small and pathetic man. There seems to be no end to the depths this man will go in every arena. The U.S. Financial markets need consistent messaging and the American people deserve better than this. I wonder if the Trump family did some short selling in advance of the damaging tweets.
36
@Facts Matters Exactly what I've been wondering. Has anyone been watching to see what his family and associates are doing with investments. He seems to have an enormous power here to move the markets up and down. How many people know in advance when "Tariff Man" will strike next?
14
@ Facts Matter
thank you for putting my thoughts into much better words than I could. I am frankly worried that the random, unthoughtful, uninformed, knee jerk tweets of POTUS can have such an immediate and drastic effect. yes SEC should get involved. and further look at the other effects: shareholders lose dividends and stock values, retirees lose savings, and worst....employees lose jobs! if POTUS worked on Wall Street and behaved this way, wouldn't he be fired?
13
Has anyone looked into phone records and other activities of close friends of President Trump to see if they are shorting the market just before he tweets these things?
34
He’s the Taxman. A tariff is a tax on imported goods. Conceptually, it’s just like a sales tax. I buy something and pay sales tax, which goes to the government. I have less money. The seller is unaffected. The government has more, which leads our president to say, “Make America Rich Again!” Note: this part of America, namely me, is not richer.
Now because the rest of the world understands tariffs, the stock market, reacts and plunges. Now the 2018 gains are gone. This includes mine.
My catchphrase? Put it back the way it was.
14
@Rebecca then the taxes you paid through tariffs are immediately remitted to rich people where they go offshore. They don’t even go back into the economy to stimulate anything of value
5
With a yawning yield curve inversion suggesting a recession in 6 to 24 months the questions are: How soon will the Trump recession begin; and how long will it last? Trump's tendency to double down on foolish acts suggests that 6 months is more likely than 24. The likely length is another issue - growing the deficit in the years of plenty limist options for the lean years. But what can you expect from a President who thinks that China pays the tariffs rather than US consumers.
14
So his tweets create a problem and then he seems to perceive himself as the knight on a horse charging in to solve it. We used to have presidents who actually studied a situation, consulted with people expert in the field, and came out with policy statements at the White House. Now we have Big Bird with his tweets! How about next time we select an adult.
7
Time for the market and the world to ignore anything he says. He never negotiates in good faith or from a position of understanding even the basics of the global economy. Check his family stock transactions.Time to see if they are making a killing on his loose tweets.
12
Never seen anything like this in all my forty plus years on this planet. Markets react very positively on reliable news of a temporary 90 day truce to the Trade wars. POTUS sends a message ( in this case tweets) the next morning to essentially ‘kill’ the positive news. Why? No discernible reason. Markets tank and billions are lost but maybe he enjoys the immense power he wields ( after all he can’t just directly destroy lives like his Dictator heroes like Putin, MBS and Kim in NK) We are truly living in incredible times!!
18
@Jules M oh he’s directly destroying lives and that will only get worse as the pressure on him intensifies
6
I'm building a nice, medium-size house so I have some perspective on where those billions of dollars in tarrifs are coming from. I'm paying more for my washer and dryer, all the appliances made with steel really, anything from China, my solar panels, my roofing, the tanks for water and propane, structural steel, a lot of stuff. We don't make a lot of money so the tax cut sure didn't help much.
Doesn't seem so great to me.
23
Where is the GOP in all this? Their inaction is equivalent to recognizing uncontrolled power to a self serving and capricious President. Marie Antoinette comes to mind...
23
He's the only president likely to ruin the economy faster than you can say "Trump Casinos."
32
Trump continues to crow how great he is.
He's been bad for trade.
He's been bad for allies.
He's been bad for international relations.
He's been bad for justice.
He's been bad for people.
He's been bad for the country.
He's been bad for the office of the president.
He's been bad for our democracy.
I like to think that everyone has some goodness. I just can't see what good there is about trump. Why are there still so many who support and protect him? He's a disaster and perhaps the only disaster one cannot blame on global warming.
30
Wait until he blames the Democrat takeover of the House for the stock market debacle
33
The NYT wrote an expose in October on Trump, with an accompanying podcast, "How Trump Really Got Rich". Discussed in this reporting were methods that Trump and his father used to manipulate the markets, back in the 80s-90s.
Perhaps this is more market manipulation by Trump. We think he's an idiot, but he, and his family, may be laughing all the way to the bank.
21
While I have very little use for Trump I will acknowledge that a different way of dealing with China was indicated given the benefits (i.e., legal and illegal) they have accrued over recent decades. But Trump is no a great negotiator - he doesn't understand that fair trade and tariffs require reciprocity, a genuine respect and trust that both parties are proposing programs that will benefit all concerned, and that trade is inextricably linked to foreign policy. Macho man, now self-proclaimed "Tariff Man", he of the many failed business ventures, wants it one way - his way - and the Chinese are more than capable and able to wait him out. And guess who will suffer here? Hint, hint not China.
12
How does an individual, not to mention a country, negotiate with a person who changes his line frequently, has over 6000 documented lies, and deals with problems, not by carefully reasoned papers, but by infantile tweets with a vocabulary reminiscent of a D student in middle school? I wouldn't buy a car from him, let alone negotiate a really serious matter involving the nation and indeed the world.
10
A simple lesson:
Trump speaks.
NEVER believe.
Give him time (not much) to brood.
Tweets appear.
The next version of “truth” comes out.
Markets react.
Repeat.
Note: Your truth may vary.
7
I wonder if any POTUS sidekicks learn of these types of spasmodic policy statements beforehand.
Of course not, just wondering. But my bet is that the market will rebound soon, after the prescient short sellers cash in their chips overseas.
7
The market just gave Trump an incredible gift - the knowledge that he has the power to destroy massive amounts of other people's money with a tweet. God help us.
Can anyone in their right mind think Trump will use this power responsibly?
27
In return for a 90 day postponement (whose principle purpose was to calm US markets for a nice Santa Claus rally) the Chinese made some vague promises that didn't amount to a hill of soybeans and our resident fathead calls it the greatest deal in history. Within hours his economic aides (stooges like Kudlow) are denying his specific claims and confusion rein. The markets take note and bang goes that nice Santa Claus rally. Bad news for some traders and institutions not to mention all those IRA holders who like to lock in their required 2019 distribution on the back of it.
9
Maybe the ultimate in insider trading? What are the Trump family members doing in the stock market these days while daddy's tweets send the market up one day and down the next? Maybe some of us are just too cynical, but worth a look....
2
Meanwhile, politicians all over this country are dismantling checks and balances in an effort to gain more power. When their done, there will be so little power to weild, what will they turn their conquoring eyes towards next? God help us.
Deregulation never ends well, and the current federal government has abdicated its role to provide proper oversight of the worst kind of president. 45 is creating real, actual trouble that your children will see in the coming decades. He's eliminated all knowledgeable advisors and doesn't even listen to the hacks he has placed in roles of serious national security.
45 is Unfit to serve. How many more examples do we need to endure?
14
@F In Texas The Senate is going to block any attempt at democracy. We are structurally flawed.
5
Again this President is the problem, not the solution. He has no policy...it is made up as he goes. So now he backtracks from a promise made (not in writing from what I see) at the G20. Come on...this is a sure formula for a market plunge. Finally it is shown that he has not made the Markets strong, just the opposite. The Markets already were strong and his flaky policy is the problem.
16
The market likes stability and maturity in our leaders. Trump is the antithesis of both.
1
The Tariff Man? I swear he meant Con Man.
23
Well, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
6
Do you think Trump trades on this volatility?
16
@CLark
Of course. This is essentially the equivalent of insider trading.
12
@AD
Probably not. Even he is not that stupid. But the HFT boys are doing very well.
2
The US is being run by a mercurial child, so it is not surprising that investors are jittery and fearful. When Obama was president Republicans whined endlessly about how his environmental regulations created uncertainty, depressed business investment and clouded the future.
Now the same Republicans fully embrace a deranged stream of consciousness form of government which does not even have a defining plan for guessing what tomorrow's actions will be. Things will only get worse as Trump bumbles through office and no one should be surprised when the US economy pays the price for the worst federal leadership that we have ever seen.
28
"Tariff man," huh?
How about "Toilet Man," because that's precisely where everything he touches begins its journey down the drain: our relationship with our allies like Mexico, France, and Canada; the gift from President Obama of our economic stability and job growth; our willingness to find common ground on issues of race and immigration; our pillars of government, such as the FBI, the Federal Reserve, the Supreme Court, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Education, the Department of the Treasury; our rapidly-failing environment; our infrastructure . . .
Rumor has it that the one thing Trump actually pays attention to (other than Fox News) is the stock market. Hopefully he's getting pounded on the head often enough by the market's current frightening gyrations to put two-and-two together and figure out that his insane tweets about his insane tariff war with China might actually be the cause of the market's sudden dash to Toilet Man's "throne". You know. The one with the flushing mechanism.
61
@ALB
Don’t count on Trump suddenly becoming rational.
10
@Grey Nice point Grey. The chances of Trump being rational are about as good as me pitching for the Red Sox next year.
8
Trump caused the market to crater big time by lying about a trade deal one day, triggering a 400 pt rally, which his aides then had to walk back the next, triggering an 800 pt drop. Prior to Trump’s meeting with Xi, I had expected that without a deal on the trade, the market would go down more than it would go up with one. But I never expected that this would be proven true by getting both!
Moreover, Trump created the whole crisis by starting the trade war to begin with. Since he is now the one under the most pressure to do something, Xi has outplayed him— just as Kim of North Korea did before. This “very stable genius” and “great negotiator” has a propensity for self-inflicted wounds.
14
What clearly happened at the G20 is that “the great negotiator” blinked. Everyone knows that except Trump. As he is now realizing he got played he will get mad and sulk, and then try his bully tactics of more or steeper tariffs.
5
@NYSkeptic I thought the news of a 90 day truce was pretty sound and reliable and not just some silly statement. It made sense too. 90 days to negotiate a long lasting deal. It should also have come with rider that both sides will remain publicly silent at least in the early going but unfortunately your POTUS just has to wield his destructive ‘tweets’ even it its to his own detriment.
Your erratic president is costing us all...
Loss of value in our savings...
Loss of calm in our lives.
Loss of faith in the future.
Loss of environment and wildlife.
Loss of the belief that politicians might work in the country's best ever interests.
The list goes on.
24
DJT: "When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so."
No, DJT, the other countries don't "pay for the privilege," we do. Tariffs are a self-imposed tax on the American consumer, not on other countries.
Your lack of understanding, Mr. Trump, just underlines your complete inability to grasp how business works (you are not a great dealmaker but a great bankrupt). Businesses need stability in their supply and pricing of materials, and in their markets, to make future plans. If they do not have stability, they will hold off on expansion, on hiring, on capital investments in plants.
Mr. Trump, you are a disaster for the American economy, American foreign policy, and American national security. All of these are linked together in a manner far beyond your severely limited comprehension.
20
@Wilton Traveler Well trump never said he took Economy 101 when he "went" to the Wharton school of Business. Perhaps that school never talks about trump because he was one of their worst students and he flunked out without graduating, you think?
5
Trump’s tweets yell out loud that he is still a real estate developer in New York! He is trying to do “deals” so the United States can make money.His belligerent attitude alienates those who could make us richer.He cannot bluff as he did as a New York businessman.His undiplomatic rants do not impress China, Russia, and North Korea.Trump cannot morph from TV personality and developer into a leader of American values.
17
@JanetMichael Unfortunately, 40% of American voters share trump's values and fantasies. With gerrymandering promoted by our "supreme" court Conservatives, we in the USA are in a heap of trouble soon to be seen by rampant poverty and loss of our retirement accounts.
Cutting SS and Medicare will be next on the Republican wish list of things to help aid income for the 1%
8
Everyone should keep in mind that when Trump speaks of tariffs, trade or the economy in general, he clearly isn't speaking as the President of the United States, nor is he speaking for his economic advisers nor the Treasury Department. He is just speaking as Donald Trump. You know, the man with multiple bankruptcies and over 4,000 lies since early 2017.
He is just out there winging it. What he says may have no relationship to reality. Wait for Mnuchin or Ludlow. They, at least, have some clue as to what is really going on.
104
@Tom Q Great until final 2 sentences.
35
@josh daniles
I said "some." :)
6
@Tom Q the trouble is that many do take what Trump says seriously--look at this week's stock market.
I hope someone is paying close attention to the stock market trades of Trump insiders.
18
Conventional wisdom about stock market performance generally says it doesn’t matter who’s in the White House. Markets will follow broader business trends and pay less attention to politics. Not so with this White House and this president. He can wreck markets and erase wealth with the nothing more than the limited arsenal of words in his vocabulary.
131
Regarding "Tariff Man," I continue to remain wary, with a heavy pessimistic tilt and a critical eye on my retirement money. Throughout his business career, Trump has proved to be a consumer/destroyer -- not a real builder. Look at his serial bankruptcies and lawsuits. Trump's skill-set appears to be limited to acting as a walking Ponzi scheme; other people's money goes in, feeding his impulsive needs, and nothing but hot air comes out. I can't imagine "Tariff Man" actually generating any long-term benefit to the markets and global economy.
145
@jirrera Let me know when you can oversee and build an office tower on 5th Ave at 32 years old like Trump did. He may be alot of things but 99% of people could not do that, rich daddy or not.
@MM
Helps to have a rich daddy and connections. Hopefully, 99%of the people would not want to do it and oversee it the way he probably did. Have you read his tax loopholes so he did have to pay federal taxes, the taxes you and I had to make up for by paying higher taxes? Or about the borderline legal way his father passed on the inheritance to Donald so taxes could be avoided? And have you seen his recent tax returns? I haven't. Still wondering why he refuses to show them. Who cares if he built an office tower when he was thirty-two. It's what behind the building and the other shenanigans that matter.
29
@MM
remember that his trick was he didn't pay his undocumented construction workers . . . just saying.
22
Investors are worried about the economy. The economy is impacted materially by tariffs and trade. Reduced trade is creates a smaller US economy based on isolationism (MAGA). Isolationism creates a smaller consumer demand with fewer products to buy. The middle class get nervous and stops spending, saves their money, reduces debt, and hunkers down. Recession rears its unavoidable head.
2
Everybody needs to relax. The President knows what he is doing, as shown by his proven leadership skills in the real estate and casino industries.
10
@CynicalObserver. Everybody "needs" to be whatever they want to be with their own opinions, values, and beliefs.
1
What stupidity! Tariff comes from the pocket of your MAGA crowd while the financiers have already hedged their bets elsewhere
18
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse- Trump, Bannon, Bolton, and Pompeo. The country has never had a President that actively desires the destruction of the country and its values.
23
Perhaps there will be a Course Correction in America's voting habits.
Perhaps this will be the last time sixty-some million Americans decide that Party affiliation is more important than their nation.
Perhaps this will be the last time a semi-literate malevolent all-around nasty human will run for "high office."
Perhaps?
21
You are overly optimistic about the intelligence of the Fox and Friends watching public.
7
Sometimes I think mr. Trump does these things on purpose. As a brat king from his WH throne he tweets to see how he has the world in his hands, with no sense of responsibility nor honest governance.
24
@DAT, It sure seems that way. People like Individual 1 and more significantly wealthy Americans lose millions on paper in a market decline but at the end of the day they are still stinking rich. For those of us doing well enough to have retirement accounts, these market declines can be the difference between a comfortable or painful financial life after work. Individual 1 doesn’t care. Give me the slow and steady rise of the post-Great Recession Obama economy.
7
If you were an agent of Russia, what would you want to achieve? Disrupting just about all US trade relationships? Injecting uncertainty into the US economy? Sowing doubt among NATO allies? Undermining confidence in US elections? Attacking the free press as being untruthful? Chip away at the rule of law and the agencies responsible for protecting it? Turn away from leaders of democracies and embrace authoritarian despots? I believe that Mr. Putin's wildest dreams are on their way in the new Trump reality.
60
Trump seems to be enjoying his control over the stock market. Tweet and the markets react.
Am I being too cynical in wondering whether he is making money off of this?
29
The Donald is quite frankly a flake and cannot be believed or trusted as he can change his mind and attitudes on a whim or maybe just on which foot hits the ground when he gets out of bed in the morning. I don't see how any world leader will ever want to engage with him as he cannot be trusted.
25
@Ellwood Nonnemacher Most despots cannot be trusted. Look at the Saudi royal family. Can the world trust them? Probably not.
1
And-in-the-mean-time; California's grape growers just got a $10 million dollar gift from the USDA which purchased 450,000 boxes of table grapes. According to the produce industry newsletter "The Packer" (www.thepacker.com):
"China’s 53% tariff on California table grapes were the reason that the commodity was included in the tariff mitigation program and inclusion in the USDA Food Purchasing Program for the first time.
Recent USDA data shows shipments of California grapes to China are down 42.2% in volume and 41.2% in value in 2018 compared to 2017, according to the release."
Perhaps over reliance on one market isn't a best practices scenario for my state's grape growers. But then again getting government to make up the entire loss- ain't too bad either. Corporate subsidies/welfare at work here.
19
@Candlewick Of course public subsidies are there to help the corporations. After all, this is a Republican ruled administration. That's what they stand for, not We the People.
4
What is a tough negotiator; is he one that takes the spoils and dumps the cost and pain on all the rest of us;a Trump business school graduate?
17
The Clown just can't keep his fat, ignorant, lying mouth shut, can he? I mean, all he has to do is shut up and not tweet. That's it.
Just. Stop. Talking.
But no, the orange, bloviating gasbag cannot keep himself from delivering to the world his special brand of "wisdom."
He was right about one thing though - watching my 401(K), I am sick and tired of "winning."
41
Mr. Trump's business track record is appalling. As a business leader and a wise and steady hand at the wheel, he is the opposite of whom he boasts to be. Why would anyone be surprised that he is taking our country down the path of economic vigilantism, instability, and skyrocketing debt. It's his game. And, he loses...a lot!
28
@Ed Carpp Who pays when the US Government goes bankrupt? We the People, that's who. Not several times bankrupt Trump. "Other People's Money" Remember that phrase? That money is our money and not his to throw away. Congress needs to put a stop to him immediately before the national debt is so high we can't pay any of it.
3
A tariff is a tax on Americans.
21
How can Trump
have credibility
with anyone?
I just don’t get it.
He is bringing
us all down.
Are his supporters
still with him?
He is an embarrassment,
his family is corrupt,
none of them have a moral compass,
he is hurting our country.
If Mueller has grounds
to indict him, I hope that
he will resign.
23
All these wailings posted on this article about how Trump has distorted reality once again don’t matter. Hannity and Fox News have already spoken, and Trump’s base is now content! Trump is brilliant, and this critical article is simply another example of fake news that will be ignored by this base!!
16
@RMiller Wait until Trump's base are our of jobs. They are already blaming GM for its cutbacks. They will never blame Trump. Never mind GM was paying way too much for metals because of Trump's tariffs. GM's management is right to look after the profits of the company first. They thumped their nose at Trump. I thought Republicans were all about the corporation.
1
Trump’s blabbering mouth & backwards economic policies just cost Americans $1 trillion- today’s 3.25% drop in US stock markets. Soon enough, Trump’s trade wars will have us in a global recession. Alongside his disastrous economic policies of undertaxing the ultra wealthy & overtaxing the middle class, Trump/GOP’s climate change denying policies will turn our fertile farmlands into worthless desert. Doesn’t matter if you’re blue or red, these current policies will send America into the dark ages, guaranteed!
22
This reminds me of an old Godzilla movie where Godzilla destroys anything and everything in his path as police and the army shoot and fire at him with everything they have. All the while he just shrugs it off as he looks to destroy the passenger train ahead on suspended tracks. But this is for real!
11
@Neal Barkett
As a fan of Godzilla movies, I resent the analogy and the way it disrespects the monster. At least Godzilla had the decency to destroy and move on. The Clown just re-destroys what he has destroyed.
I will say though that their voices sound the same to me.
17
And our country and world standing are the train.
2
How much money is trump making from insider trading everytime he purposefully says something to move the markets or a specific stock, while the rest of us lose, lose, lose in our 401k? This unstable, conniving thief can't leave office soon enough.
35
I'm livid. Having spent years of work on a photo book of regional history, I find myself buffeted by presidential follies. Tariffs on, tariffs off; trade war yes, no, in-between? Working with an American publisher, writers, editors, historians, photographers, I'm watching in dismay as our book arrives 6 weeks late due to retaliatory slowdowns in Chinese ports.
Real pain for we who are dependent on holiday sales, losing all but the final 3 weeks before Christmas! Like the farmers who've lost their export markets, we are suffering actual loss; at least we didn't vote for this foolish deplorable-in-chief.
16
Stable genius writting the next TV episode where Tarrif Man swoops into the summit. "Oh what chemistry" the sycophants exclaim. "My magic tarrif wand will vanquish all foes" he tweets. "On TV I play the part of an A plus President" he exclaims.
I always hated reality TV.
5
Or, would you prefer War? THAT is the choice. China went unhindered for years, and went into overdrive after joining WTO. Their's has NOT been reciprocal trade as required, they stole copyright, license and title of products, processes and intel. They are NOT our friend, nor are they a friend to anyone but China- they had China First (and were planning China 2020/5) before Trump implemented America First.
The ONLY way to beat the Chinese is with unpredictability, Trump is the perfect player. Maybe we do a deal, maybe we don't. What price to avoid War? And what would that War look like? Do you really want to consider it?
I'll stick to 'spooking' the stock investors thank you!
2
@Rob Campbell
You've managed to "reason" yourself right into a nice Manichean choice, haven't you?
Most of us realize that solutions occur along a continuum. Face it, your boy the Clown knows only one strategy. He's a one-trick pony and *everyone* is tired of his shtick.
Also, it's not working.
31
@Rob Campbell If anyone thinks they can stop the Chinese at making money, they are sadly mistaken. Trump cannot stop them. The Chinese communist government has seen the value of capitalism on a grand scale and they are not about to give that up. The party leaders need to support themselves and their family lavish lifestyles they have built up over the years. Its all about the money as usual.
1
@JW. The Chinese party leaders, and many more in China will be just fine... just as elites anywhere. It is for Xi to sell to the party that has just elected him president for life. Xi pretty much gets what Xi wants. Of course it's all about the money, my guess is we will come out of it ok, indeed we will come of it sparkly, as will the Chinese... EU etc., not so sure?! Trump's unpredictability is our greatest asset here.
1
I have this visual of Trump with a maestro’s baton. He raises the baton by claiming something very good transpired and up goes the stock-market. He lowers the baton by saying pretty much the opposite the next day and down goes the stock market.
Being the utterly clueless (yet very stable genius) that he is, he either cannot comprehend that he’s causing these wild gyrations with his ranting tweet-policy or he’s totally excited at this super fun power he has to WIN at causing stock marketing fluctuations.
5
@Becka
And perhaps the Emolument President is taking the opportunity to play the market as he roils it
9
It feels to me like Trump is burning bridges left and right these days. He was Mr. Teflon with his base for a while, but now, GM proposes to close plants in the U.S., farmers lack the certainty they need to know what to plant or how to pay their bills, rich people who own stocks watch their fortunes rise and fall with his capriciousness. It is evident which party is more committed to making health care affordable and available to those with preexisting conditions. Trump has worked to sow chaos, destroy institutions, isolate the U.S. from its allies, sully its reputation. Most anyone can see that climate change is real and is here, and more of us are paying the price for that as the future of the world hangs in precarious balance.
Turnout in the midterms was impressive! Democrat gains in the House and at the state level were also impressive. Women are saying we're not gonna take it any more.
I can't wait for 2020. Indeed, I hope Trump's reign will come to an end long before then, and that a vast majority of Americans will embrace that outcome.
Trump is ruining our country and our lives.
37
Trump will be a one-term president, if that.
If he is not, it will be because we will no longer be a democracy.
But a severe recession will limit his ability to be re-elected.
Revelations of corruption and collusion will threaten his completing one term.
20
@HLR If this country goes into a recession, he will indeed be a one-term president. His faithful followers will lose their jobs and so will many other people in this country.
1
Xi and Trump gave different G20 reports to their different peoples. If one reads the statements in English and in Chinese side by side, it's not difficult to understand why Trump back tracks.
7
Take away Tariff Man's phone. Really, take it away. Do it. Now.
23
@KB The news media just has to stop reporting all tweets whether they are from Trump or not. Since when did governments start making policy over public media?
2
Trump is exactly like so many comic strip characters drawn over past decades, some of which have been supplanted by TV animations. He seems to currently be starring in SOUTH PARK.
6
I guess that investors are not as easily impressed with Donald Trump's self-congratulatory puffery as his base, and by extension, the GOP Congress. It would be nice if some of them took their constitutional roles seriously and pushed back on Trump's claims, but I guess we all know by now that they are not in the oversight business, or for that matter, the service to America business.
It's equally the case that Trump's North Korea policy is a sham. In both his China trade policy and the China help us with North Korea policy, Trump is dealing with a leader who is head and shoulders above Trump in intelligence and sophistication. It doesn't look like actual reality is going to work out as well for the USA as Trumpist reality TV and the Tweet-A-Rama that we see every day.
The question is, I guess, will the entire charade be exposed before 2020? I sure hope so.
21
Trump says he's a tariff man. Problem is, tariffs, according to the Constitution, must be levied by the House of Representatives. They voted against Trump's tariffs by an overwhelming majority,
So he moved to plan B -- call iron and aluminum imports, and potentially any or all products from from Europe, Canada, China or Mexico a threat to U.S. national security, using his executive privilege, and place tariffs on them.
This at a time when, if not the average American's budget, that of the overall national economy is soaring. The DOW's and other trading markets' recent 2-day drop is because of Trump's continued iinsistence on tariffs.
With these "National Security tariffs", Trump also labels our long-time allies as security threats. China, being a non-transparent, Communist government could possibly be called a threat, if there were any indications that they were going to attack the U.S., but there aren't.
Trump keeps using the "National Security" card to have his way. He can be over-ruled by a 2/3 majority in Congress. Both houses of Congress are not particularly happy with his trade moves. They must exercise their power to check the Executive and vote down the tariffs.
27
@Lilou he has placed tariffs on our little nation because we are a nuclear free zone and won't let war ships into our waters and it's never going to happen.He is. nothing but a bragger and bully.
7
@susan kirby
Do you have room for one more? I think I'd make a great Kiwi.
5
@Lilou Looking at the long term trends towards an "inversion" is like watching a gas truck chugging along at 20 MPH. On the other hand, Trump´s policies look like he has put a match to the trail of gasoline. Unfortunately for the world it seems as if the gasoline is catching fire and closing in on the truck at 40 MPH.
I wonder what this wizard will think of next. S.O.S.
3
A tariff is a tax. China doesn’t pay it. American consumers do.
Trump is, labeled correctly, the Tax Man. Finally, he tells the truth.
31
Re your headline: it’s misleading. Your President actually tweeted “I’m a Tariff Man”. He’s not claiming to be “Tariff Man”. Why give him the keys to the FakeNewsmobile!!!
4
I'm just amazed anybody is bothering to listen to Trump. We all know he says one thing one day and then something else the next. So why do investors take him seriously and act as if his daily bloviations mean anything. Come on folks...use your brains and stop the knee-jerk reactions.
11
The know nothing President keeps making things up. Why anybody listens or believes him? He changes his mind every minutes.
14
The upcoming Greater Recession, accountable to Trump, is going to dwarf Dubya's Great Recession. Smart money has been moving to cash two months before today.
Trump supporters, beware....Trump's economic lies and actions have stacked the deck against you. Therefore, the Greater Recession will negatively affect you disproportionately more than others. Unfortunately, it's too late to change the outcome, so don't waste time trying to do so. Likewise, forget about prayers. Markets don't respond to prayers.
13
Congress has allowed Trump to set tariffs by whim by allowing him to do it in the name of national security. Tariff policy should be set by Congress not by this maniac of a president who lies about "agreements" he supposedly enters with other countries which turn out, even by his own economic advisers' admission, to be completely illusory. It is time for Congress to end enabling Trump's tariff whims by eliminating the national security exception and requiring tariff policy to be set by the Congress. Unless they do so Trump will continue his erratic trade "policy" likely to destroy the U.S. economy and the economies of other nations.
Unless Republicans join with Democrats in curtailing Trump's uneducated tariff games, the nation will suffer. If Republicans want to instead continue enabling Trump's manic tariff jousting, they will be responsible for the results.
10
Who pays the tariffs? the little guy who buys the imported goods.
Who finds his standard of living drop? the little guy who finds commodities too expensive with the tariffs tacked on.
Who gets laid off when foreigners can't buy our exports because their countries have tacked on tariffs? The little guy who is employed by American companies that export goods.
So remind me what the tariffs are for?
24
Highly irresponsible seat of the pants public policy rants from the President. Will the US ever recover from these disastrous 4 years?
26
Could someone please explain to me how these slow motion tariffs fall under the guise of national security exigencies? Supposedly Mattis is signing off on the urgency of these actions that have now consumed many many months.
Congress do your job.
No more TrumpThumbTariffTriggers
17
Trump has to be removed from office. Retirement accounts are falling apart while at the same time we are giving welfare to farmers who are destroying their crops that they cannot sell to China. Trumps Tariffs and Bluster are the core of both of these failed Trump Initiatives.
36
There is something seriously wrong with our national governance structure when the (so-called) president can unilaterally make such important policy decisions without some kind of legislative review.
39
More like Terrifying Man...
16
The man is unhinged. First he makes a big mess starting a trade war without any planning or thought process. Then he makes some sort of deal with China at the G20 and tries to bluff the world into how yoooooj it is. Then he threatens tariffs and the market goes down 800 points. It’s all lies and the US will NOT recover for decades.
37
So what about not talking publicly about all of your plans? It's quote evident Trump only did so as he had nothing planned. Now, he's just yapping and threatening away. Every day it gets worse and worse.
20
He calls himself the Tariff Man.
Always doing something he does not understand.
Creates problems whenever he can.
He has no idea where the tariff money came,
But he is the Tariff Man.
Tariff Man. Tariff Man.
This guy has no shame.
14
Remind me ... well, President Trump .. who actually pays the billions that we are collecting on tariffs.
13
But Trump is the authority on the art of the deal. He's the man. He keeps telling us that. I don't suppose he could be lying or just an expert in his eyes only. Of course he was born on third base and never had to try his hardest to hit a man home so the team could win.
I think he and the members of the Grossly Overestimating Themselves Party need to go back to kindergarten. They missed the lessons on working and playing well with others. Governing a country means working for every person in the country, not just the ones who are rich or who voted for one. Trump has not been working for the 99%. He and the GOP are working on behalf of the economic elites, those rare birds who don't ever mingle with the rest of us because they don't want to catch what we have: worries and stress about how our lives will work out.
If we have another recession or a depression it will hurt more than what happened in 2008. And we will be able to blame the GOP because they are the party that has catered most in the last 10 years to every whim and desire the corporations have had. Our tax dollars apparently aren't enough to convince the GOP that we are and should be their special interest group. Fools that they are they chase down corporations and love being flattered instead of expected to do their jobs. There's a price to pay for this. I'm tired of the American workers being the ones to pay. Vote out the GOP in 2020.
27
If the US economy is experiencing “standout” growth why is the Fed’s policy still accommodative? Why are interest rates still so low? Why does the Fed have more than $4 trillion in assets compared with $800 billion before the financial crisis? Why did the federal deficit grow 17% this year? Does this sound like a standout economy?
Ever feel like it’s all just smoke and mirrors? Will social security really be there for us when we retire? How about Medicare?
Unfortunately the only standouts this year seem to be the shootings, floods and fires.
12
Wasn't this Mr. Tariff Man claiming to be Mr. Brexit not so long ago? How's that working out?
Mr. Twitter Troll strikes again and strikes out!
9
Are we enjoying the ride yet, with an incompetent, self-obsessed serial liar at the helm? So much winning.
17
Trump lies to his base and they love it. He lies to Wall Street and he's picking gravel out of his teeth.
8
The Chinese would be within their rights to assert that the truce has now been broken, and that any further comments from the WH for the remainder of the 90 day period would end it outright.
4
The Chinese have observed Trump’s behavior enough by now to understand that this is his idea of skillful bargaining: first playing the madman who will wreck everything rather than give an inch, and then entering into negotiations from what he imagines to be a strong psychological position — and even talking about his use of this tactic between-times.
If it seems that investors are less attentive, that’s only because they take news headlines as signals to do what they’ve been thinking of doing for other reasons. When signs of underlying weakness and excessive risk have been building for some time and share prices have enjoyed a retracement from recent lows, a moment like this is simply a good time to call it a day.
4
Trump said he had a gut feeling about the economy. The market is getting the same uneasy feeling just much later.
9
I’ve been studying China for a while to put it nicely you can’t tariff China. They do almost everything for America. It would be wrong if they decided to be petty and started adding taxes on the products that exports to the US. Not only would the govt feel it but imagine the small businesses that depend on them. Trying to scare China is like trying to scare my mother... it never works (in my favor). They (China) probably don’t know what to do with a president that send threats on Twitter.
7
This Hamlet-like approach - 'To tariff or not, that is the question' - creates chaos for businesses globally. Today one US electronics company said their tariff-base price premium was still on, then it was off due to the agreement, now it may be on again. Another company moved shipping from the West Coast to the East Coast since they would not have a tariff deadline. This effects a huge number of US and Chinese companies and all face uncertainty. Want to know why the markets are down? We have lost a stable, reliable business environment. This is not like buying a building!
12
It's laughable now because he has been found out to be the carnival barking fraud we were warned about. Unless we also want to delve in his "Russian" experiences. Then the words, treason and traitor, pop up.
28
I sure hope the occupant of the White House is investing wisely. I'd hate to see him lose money as a result of his pronouncements.
7
@Phillip Rubin i would like to see the spirit of Chairman Mao take away his phone,and send him to spend the rest of his life working in a rice paddy.
11
@mki like that idea .
2
It is difficult enough for this administration, of half witted ideologues, to take on such challenging issues as China. But then to muddy the waters with boastful, confusing and ignorant comments is amazing. As a trade bargaining technique perhaps but look what it does to the average American investor/consumer who is looking for some sense of predictability and context.
13
Time and time again, we see Trump's modus operandi: Wade into something, thrash about like a rabid wolverine until it starts to break, take a quick breather to admire the damage, resume thrashing until irreparably broken, then waddle away and claim victory. Behind the scenes, game the markets and make real estate deals with despots.
29
Oh great, I suppose thats a step up from "Rocket Man"?
6
Thank you for leading with the S & P 500, an indicative and useful measure, rather than the unrepresentative and exceeding flawed Dow Jones Industrials.
1
Sometimes recessions start because people are afraid a recession is going to start. The ship begins taking on water, people begin jumping off, letting more water on and the spiral continues until the vague prophesy comes true.
If you are making too many products, cars, air conditioners, washing machines, whatever, when the economy goes down then you have a chance of going down with it. Goods piled on shelfs or stored in warehouses or car lots continue to cost money unsold.
Recessions, then, can be self sustained by belief as much as fact because no one wants to get caught manufacturing at full capacity when the products are suddenly not needed. All the businesses, services and otherwise, that depend on other businesses providing wages to their employees then get hurt in turn.
These factors are basic, of course. One triggering factor is when businesses in a given economy keep expanding up until the time the expansion becomes wasteful. Then, they cut back hard to save themselves.
During the last recession, state and local governments were hurting the overall economy by cutting back hard as the recession set in, so they made it worse. Only the federal government had the economic power to turn things around.
Had the Republicans captured the presidency under McCain in 2004, they would have slammed on the brakes, most likely causing a depression. It would have all been blamed on the Democrats and overspending, even though G.W. Bush was president when it all began.
4
I think it’s time for the SEC to do something. What I don’t know. No other American could get away with creating this sort of chaos in our markets.
14
Stock traders must be nervous wrecks with all their twitchiness. I’d certainly hate to be married to one or be around them.
4
The only mystery is why the market temporarily rallied on Monday based on something Trump said he had achieved. Not only does he have the shallowest understanding of economics and the role of the President in influencing the economy, but he is incapable of consistency, of holding a thought or policy or programmatic idea in his head for longer then a day. Invest not based on anticipated government action because it is unpredictable, but on the underlying soundness of the company.
26
Yesterday the Times wrote about Wynn going up 10 dollars with a China settlement possible well it fell 10 today and there was no article about it.
4
I’m not worried at all about my investments, “tariff man” .... aka not-my-president said “he has everything under control”, whatever that means.
3
So in his distorted sense of reality he can order China to do something 'immediately'??
Huge laugh emoji here!!
9
Scapegoating China ！ while it helps us to make money, with its affordable products and labor.
“Rocket man,” Tariff man,”...
It all sounds destructive to me.
6
Trump University could offer a new course: "How to Use Twitter to Manipulate the Stock Market."
14
@ellienyc Yes, a crash course.
14
Trump who managed to go into financial failure several times and was saved only by the quirk of his celebrity status and infusions of cash (some skirting tax laws) from his father is now recklessly playing with trade wars as well as ballooning deficits and will likely mismanage our economy. But we have no Daddy Warbucks to bail us out. This President is a disaster.
15
What is the president doing? Sabotaging US economy? Ivanka and Jared, take away his phone and stop him twitting so the stock market won't crush again.
8
Loose lips sink ships. This ship of state is on the rocks as most likely are the retirement funds of his base.
He has to go. He’s a clear and present —as in today’s tirades—danger to every single American.
8
Years ago I remember reading an interview of one of Trump's old casino partners that was "lucky" to only loose half a million going into business with Trump. He said everyone just underestimated how fast Trump could pillage and sink his own company. That is still what the Trump crime family is doing with this country. There was no benefit to this country to bail out a sanctioned Chinese tech company that got caught giving our technology to Iran and NK. Just the opposite . But businesses connected to Trump secured a loan, Ivanka gets patents. Trump will always choose to put this country and it's security second to personal financial gain for himself and his kids. He's incapable of seeing himself as a public servant. He's sees America as his company...and he only knows how to raid, destroy and bankrupt his own companies. He's never been a good businessman. He's just a criminal.
44
The Dow is close to an all-time high.
@richguy You might not be so rich, unless you are trading in shorts. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-chart-may-be-a-key-reason-the-stock-market-is-plunging-2018-12-04.
@Dennis Embry
I'm rich from a trust fund.
I'm just pointing out that the drop of the Dow is perhaps just normal retracement. It is, after all, at an all-time high. Most individual stocks retrace a bit after hitting a high.
Donald J Trump doesn’t understand the first thing about economics. His babysitters need to rein him in.
7
The instability of the market reflects the instability of our president
22
Wow- Trump is so mis-guided and out for only himself! I am spending little money this Christmas waiting for what time brings. So depressing.
6
Trump with the ever unfailing anti-midas touch.
It used to be asked in an election cycle whether or not you were better off then you were four years ago. With Trump this is being reduced to a staggering 4 hours. This President is the most expensive in every way. Lack of investment in education, infrastructure, forcing health care to rise in cost, increased tariffs so that goods are more expensive, and creating the perfect storm for a massive recession, cold war with China, hot war with N. Korea. All this winning - I am indeed sick and tired of it.
9
Previously I debated whether the Vietnam or Iraq war did more damage to US standing, now I am coming to the tragic conclusion that the most damage wreaked on the US world standing is by a former reality tv star and third-class grifter.
I never prepared myself for the world where Canada is our enemy and a potential national security threat and Putin is offered real estate goodies. Never prepared for Trump dissing McCain and praising Kim.
Trump has incredibly given Russia and China their most salient point to use against the US, the unreliability of US policy and even worse linking US policy to the personal whims of Trump and his personal feelings about a particular leader.
What friend or ally of the US is not concerned about Trump waking up and deciding to either abrogate an agreement or add tariffs. Trump seemingly by incompetence and spite has squandered a chance to unite the EU, US, Canada and Japan as well as bring along ASEAN in plan to confront the most egregious trade policies of China.
In the current standoff, Trump faces an election in 2 years, Xi does not. I know who can stand the most pain.
12
Trump shorts the market first, then makes his tweet and a few hours later he makes millions. Could he actually be doing this, manipulating the stock market for his and his own family to gain more personal wealth while being President of the United States?
21
Of course he could, and he no doubt is. The Trump family is making themselves rich at America's expense. It was ever so, since January, 2017.
11
Trump doesn’t have the free cash to short the market. He had to sell what stocks he had to raise cash during the campaign.
@David Eriksen.
Trump has people who do have the cash if he doesn't.
1
Tariffs, agreed. Perhaps things could be made in America again?
1
@Wolf Bein At a cost prople can afford? How? Magic?
2
Can't say that everything was fine before the Trumpster came into office, but we certainly didn't have these problems. The T-man is the opposite of Midas, everything he touches turns to (fill in the blank)/
12
Trump exacerbates anything bad that can happen. Sure, expansions don’t last forever. If anything will push us into recession, it’s a trade war. And it will be Trump’s recession. It is utterly sensible to hope that it hits before he gets a second term.
16
I hate to wish for that but it may be what will drive out. Can only hope
1
What I am most curious about is whether select few in Trump’s orbit know beforehand about his tweets that will reliably tank the stock market?
Didn’t we have that one guy who was in the White House lawn calling his brother about a policy decision that was about to be announce on Easter? How many more of these ‘tweet’ events are something that is shared beforehand?
23
I wonder what odds the readers give for a recession sometime between now and the next election in 2020.
Given an inverted yield curve, tight money policy, a trade war and rising government deficit - (crowds out private investment) it seems possible.
Also will people call it the Trump Recession?
14
@Peter The coming recession will be known as the Republican Recession, and will forever be linked to the most criminal period in US history involving all three branches of government.
6
@TFB
geez... Beat Nixon? . According to Wiki in reference to Watergate, ". The cover up by Nixon and his staff resulted in 69 government officials being charged and 48 convicted or pleading guilty."
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States
His biggest mistake so far, he gave himself the "Tariff Man" moniker, like "Crooked Hillary" and "Crazy Bernie". This one will stick and it will do him in when the economy crashes starting later next year.
47
i took my stocks out [sold them all] in july...only about 7 months too late....
7
I wonder if Trump family and friends are shorting stocks?
28
@Jerry in NH
THIS! This is an excellent question. Wish it could be known.
5
Think how Trump ran his hotel/casinos in Atlantic City into the ground; only on the grandest scale imaginable.
The self-proclaimed "smart cookie" is going to crumble.
You watch.
24
It's one thing when the president's personal legal strategy hinges on his idiotic tweets it's another when peoples pocketbooks do.
He needs to be removed. He's compromised personally, and he's unfit to serve.
55
I’m thinking what will probably happen here is that Trump’s sleazy and corrupt presidency will collapse due to indictments and/or scandal before he finishes out his term. Then he will be impeached and resign - and blame it all on “fake news” and “witch hunts”.
Then he’ll try to start some sort of right wing media empire, which is what I think he wanted to begin with.
He’s an accidental president who thought he’d
use the publicity to augment his con artist style of doing business, and we’re stuck with him - but not for long...I hope.
29
Before now it couldn't have happened. A tweet from an ignorant man, given power by equally ignorant, racist, isolated people crashes the work markets. This is the now reality.
22
@rumcow:
Yes, mostly, but he was and is also supported by a group of exceedingly wealthy and well-connected people who wanted to use him. And to them Trump (and trusty mate McConnell) delivered to them a huge tax break windfall, a gutting of regulations that would curb their most rapacious inclinations, and judges that will rule in their favor long after Donald and Mitch are out of office.
Be careful not to buy into the myth that he represents and speaks for the silent, ignored, overlooked non-elites from the heartland. Plenty of rich and powerful people, and the aspirationally rich and powerful, in all parts of the country are only too happy to support Trump to line their own pockets. They either agree with him, or more likely just don't mind destroying our honor and democracy as long as they profit. Disgusting.
Thank goodness some people of integrity and dignity--in all regions and all tax brackets--are resisting.
31
This would be a good time for him to leave.
13
I am afraid (seriously) that 45 will never leave.
Nixon, despite all his deep flaws, had brains and understood the US constitution. Nixon knew that he did so much harm to the political system and it all came to an end, and he resigned.
5
Just in time for the republicans to blame the democrats for the coming market crash.
12
To the Tariff Man: you should call this the Tax Man. Every tariff is nothing else but a tax, paid by the consumer. As simple as that.
41
He is running the country to the ground like he has run some of his own businesses to the ground--and profited from his losses.
36
Where is big-mouth Trump when the market is down...while he sends himself congratulations when up? Actually, being mum for a change may be a blessing. Perhaps, even better, sending to tend his golf courses, away from causing trouble, is what's needed. Enough damage already with his thoughtless tariffs...and belittling his Allies.
18
The wonderful economy (2 minimum wage jobs for all in place of one) Trump takes credit for is a combination of what Obama left him and a $1.7T infusion of borrowed cash. When the next one hits, we have Trump, a Muppet, and Mr. Burns to protect us...
13
I feel bad for any algorithm that has to make sense of the tweets. P.S. the bond market is no safe haven unless part of a diverse portfolio.
5
@K Swain the bond market is in its own way as volatile as the stock market and for me, more difficult to understand. I did on one occasion make some money on the bond market by buying a bond with an noncompetitive interest rate in a period of rising interest rates and holding it until it matured.I think I paid about 80 cents on the dollar and redeemed it for the face value (say I paid $80 for a $100 bond and cashed it in for $100). I am sure people get rich this way, but it makes me cross-eyed and twitchy.I do ok with stocks by buying companies I know and like their business model
My point, before I got distracted, is that ordinary people would be best off keeping it simple and staying away from stocks and bonds with money they can't afford to lose. With spare cash, take your pick, stocks, bonds, the ponies, whichever your expertise is. Using a financial adviser is a donation of % of your assets to him annually for the (dubious) benefit of (maybe) keeping you from doing something stupid
1
In his infinite wisdom, trump took FULL credit for anything good that happens in the economy.
Ergo, trump is FULLY responsible for anything bad that happens to the economy.
An actually wise president would be very circumspect about taking credit for this very reason.
15
Some MAGAts on twitter are already blaming the House democrats... LOL
7
Will this “ stable genius” never tire of manipulating the stock markets with his outbursts. I’d like to see if anyone profits from advanced warning of his tweets. Fortunes can be made by microseconds of insider knowledge of his tweets. Given his choice of the type of individuals he has so far chosen to surround himself with, this type of insider manipulation is quite possible. Meanwhile the average investor like myself bears the cost of this erratic market
34
I think it would be wisest for the Chinese, the Germans, the Canadians, the Mexicans, pretty much everyone really, to put yellow crime scene tape around this country, spray it with Lysol, and wait for the cleaning team to arrive in January.
84
This President is a planet killing maniac, a kind of Death Star.
Tweet a few shattering comments about his intentions with respect to "his" trade war with China, and cause billions of dollars in losses, yes this President is out there, way out there, and deadly dangerous.
43
Maybe if Trump was truthful about what was actually happening, instead of lying to make himself look good he would get better results. The markets are a lot like Santa. They "know when you've been bad or good".
6
With his ignorance, the tariff man can make America poor again by taking it back to the great depression!
17
The GOP tax bill has already bankrupted the country, and leaves very little room for fiscal stimulus when we need it: to offset the impact of a recession.
23
SEBI fined Elon Musk $20m for misleading tweet that manipulated market. President's tweet caused bigger mayhem in market, SEBI should investigate it too.
67
Rural Americans, by and large, elected Tariff Man (aka, the Stable Genius). They, like their chosen leader, have little understanding of the economic complexities of global trade. Sadly, it will take a market meltdown and the negative effects to the economy, as countries rewire their supply chains to exclude the US, before they fathom how big a mistake they made. Lastly, and most ironically, it is rural America that will be most damaged by this unhinged president.
40
@Beachbum6556 I agree and it’s worth noting that only about half of US citizens are invested in the market. Given the demographic profile of Trump supporters, I would guess most are not. This rout likely goes right over their heads.
This what happens when we elect a corrupt and inept person to lead our country, while his party is unwilling to do anything about it. Maybe some of those rich Republicans that have been enjoying the show will start to take a different tack now that their wealth is beginning to dwindle.
18
While it might look innocent to proof Daddy’s twitter feed, if one’s investment portfolio were to grow as a result of the proofreading, who is to know? We wouldn’t want Daddy to send out a tweet with a spelling error, would we?
2
@Anon, Jimmy , Carlotta35
odd that these three tweets get repeated in a two minute span, or should I say, spam
Won't Trump's U.S. handlers get disgusted and push GOP to impeach?
Does there need to be any louder message sent to the Feds? Stop raising the interest rates so fast!!!
2
Wake me up at -40% yoy, there might be some pickings to buy then
2
From MAGA, we now have MARA! At least he's finally admitted that his trade policies offset his tax cuts.
1
Trump is so far out of his depth here. His approach to the economy is like a kid's with a toy—if it gets broken, daddy will buy you a new one.
It doesn't work like that. Words (and actions) have consequences. He doesn't get it that if the hole he's digging gets much deeper, the country stands to fall into a full-fledged depression.
Yet another example of the perils of electing an unprepared egotist who doesn't accept that if you don't know, you'd better ask someone who does.
22
brilliant assessment
2
The President lied to us. It's that simple. And that led to an 800 point drop on the market and the loss of billions of investment dollars.
The market is difficult enough to interpret without being fed false information by the megalomaniacal man in the White House. All in an attempt to deflect from the latest news and make himself look clever in the bargain.
Speaking of bargains and deals , can you think of any fabulous bargains that have been struck by the author of 'The Art of the Deal' ?
It has been a bizarre couple of years indeed. Trump's documented lies over that time are in the several thousands and it is crystal clear that this fellow cares nothing for the truth and has , at various times , verbalized that very fact.
The fact that an alleged news source , Fox , supports this man's propaganda and endless untruths is also bizarre. No other president has enjoyed his very own mouthpiece in the media. Trump appears almost exclusively on Fox. He is particulary fond of Sean Hannity who fawns upon his every word and , it said , has daily conversations with a Chief Executive who actually heeds the advice of this bigoted broadcaster of hatred and right wing babble
It is also said the fortunes of Fox News are irrevocably tied to the coat tails of Mr. Trump's success in the Oval Office
Given the current state of affairs , it would be no great disaster were they both to go away...far away
And America would be both relieved and enabled to pursue greatness anew
11
You can bet that the Trump family is not heavily invested in industries affected by his tariffs or his nonsensical, retrograde, counter-productive economic policies ("Let's forget technological efficiencies and bring back low-yeild, low-paying jobs in moribund industries, like coal mining! Bring back horse-drawn transportation and cow-milking by hand!"). Well, I guess you'd have to bet, since the Trumps are still hiding the extent of their financial involvement in Russian concerns. COLLUSION! SAD.
6
Waiting for a recession to buy home improvement materials like wood floors and a backyard fence on the cheap once the recession hits. God knows I can not afford these upgrades now!
5
Gotta love these headlines and the way everyone responds to the news. Trump is annoying and his tweets are ridiculous, however stocks going up and down right now is due to investors emotion and people's knee jerk reaction to our over sensationalized headlines.
Tariffs are a pain, but there are ways for businesses to get around them. At the end of the day, this is all bargaining and fodder for political ambitions. Nothing is set in stone and many of the tariffs being mentioned have ways of being skirted around. Even if they didn't their not large enough to wipe off trillions in global GDP, which is what we'd need for a bear market.
Educate yourselves vs reacting to the daily headlines, Trump loves this as do all the news publications...we're just giving them what they want when we react so quickly and easily.
4
@Coffeelover: You don't know what you're talking about. Ask the workers who GM is going to pink slip how they feel about tariffs. While China shifts its supply of soybeans to other countries, ask the farmers who will go bankrupt how they feel about tariffs.
13
Are we going to see a repeat of Barack Obama inheriting a crumbling economy from his GOP predecessor? After Trump received a relatively smooth-running economic machine, will The Donald also pass off ruins?
17
It is truly amazing, how many comments cheering and hoping for an economic slowdown. You are all Patriots for the left.
2
@Mike K.Well, Mike, I don’t see many hoping for a slowdown. I see lots of comments recognizing that we are already in one. I see comments reflecting on the past problems and predicting what is likely to happen based on past experience.
I see comments noting ironically that Trump supporters are going to be among the hardest hit. And you know what, Mike? You have it coming.
In Spades, do you have it coming.
35
Usually stock market plunges were not caused by domestic political reasons
This time, it is purely Trump's own doing
10
The stock market dropped 2.8% on the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination, but recovered two days later, largely because the country had an experienced hand like Johnson to follow him.
The Dow dropped by more than 3% today. This time the drop will be far more severe and last much longer. Trump has no intention of going away and the country has no one but Pence to replace him.
14
@A. Stanton - when I marched in NYC's "Women's March" in January 2017, I told people around me that the best part of the Nixon resignation is that Agnew was out first. Gosh, is there any way Pence can be in trouble before Trump?
1
The stock market does not determine how the economy is doing
The stock market goes up when the economy improves and goes down when the economy goes deteriorates.
The people who invest base those investments not on how the economy does.
They base it on what they think it will be.
They could be wrong.
If the economy stays where it is or doesn't get much worse I am confident that most of the stocks will go up again and will not be a drain on the economy.
1
But the real threat to the economy is barely discussed -- i.e., there are far fewer arrows in the government's quiver to address any recession. Interest rates are already low, "quantitative easing" may well prove to be a ticking time bomb rather than some sort of ingenious financial fix and taxes were idiotically cut when there was no need to do so.
And you can be sure pandering politicians will never, ever ask voters to tighten their belts.
So what's left? Printing or borrowing even more money. In other words, inflation.
Hold onto your seats, it's going to be a heckuva ride.
13
@J. Cornelio - Thank you for this important comment. I've thought this since the Tax Cut Cut Cut bill was passed. With all the "best people" he has brought in, it doesn't seem they know or care about basic economics and the tools needed to help in a recession. Short term thinking that will ultimately cause great pain to our country and the world.
I'm not the first to mention that a tariff is a tax. We should rebrand Mr. Tariff Man as Mr. Tax Man. That's closer to what the effect of his actions is.
24
Why is anyone in the market paying any attention to 45? I'm a former Wall St. analyst (23 years in the biz) and it took a lot more than something like this to make the market move like that.
Come on young traders and account execs -- get with the program and do your job. Don't pay any heed to him. He's out of touch and wouldn't know an equity from a bond if he rang the opening bell himself.
21
Because it’s more than Trump that’s tanking the market. It’s the GOP itself! Want a lot of growth? Put more money in more hands and you will get growth. As a NYC resident, do you think people in the Tristate area are going to be happy when they do their taxes? We are all going to get crushed due to the SALT deduction being lost.
8
@Euphemia Thompson
part of this is any little investor who thinks he can run his stocks online as if he were buying groceries. there are VERY few people who can do this successfully instead of using a broker.
another analogy is that the internet has contributed to the 'dryer lint' principle: any old keyword of interest brings one only to an item, not the front door of the store. if the consumer, not knowing really what they're shopping for, just hits the one item, they'll never learn what else is in there for them.
@Euphemia Thompson
Short sellers pounce at any opportunity to short. Now, the market trades in lockstep. I trade lowcap biotech penny. They are not part of the Dow yet the move with the Dow. My guess is traders short baskets of stocks at the slightest provocation. That's how the market moves now: Panic drop, short spike, panic drop, short spike. Or that's my sense.
Few traders are sophisticated enough to get macroeconomics. We watch patterns.
What holdings has the Donald and his cohorts shorted that makes this a power play investment strategy?
35
@From Where I Sit
Excellent. More attention needs to be paid to this.
9
You kidding? their long and strong (and wrong!); just like the original trump casino bonds which missed their FIRST coupon! Biggest loser ever; you can google it, no joke. (Or read the barrons article).
4
One day he says he has a plan with China,and the market goes up, the next day he causes the market to sell off due to tariffs. Trump should just be quiet and see how everything works out on its own. Now if the Fed still raises rates, the market will crash. dos people feel that they want toes his taxes? Hopefully he will just release them. Not sure why he doesn't. Likely he is making his friends money, for some traders are deliberately trading after his remarks when nothing has really changed. Maybe he set it up for them on the side. IF China decides not to make a deal in three months , he will be stuck with higher tariffs. The Chinese may enjoy watching him fat, For if the economy falls here , he will not get re-elected. Wouldn't surprise if the Chinese have figured out how to control him.
10
Someone needs to inform Trump that we are the second largest exporter in the world. All you need is everyone raising tariffs, and our economy will tank because no one is buying our goods.
China exports $2,157,000m and we export $1,576,000m. That is a lot of money earned by our country.
Getting a better deal in China? Ok, I can live with that, but only with the goal of increasing global trade. He wants to use it as revenue for the government.
He is forgetting history. That tea tax was a tariff.
It is not well reported, but China has started fair patent infringement prosecution. Forced technology transfer still needs work...but some companies are getting exemptions like Tesla.
If we want to fix trade imbalance, this is not the way to do it. Look at sugar. We need to end subsidies to make corn syrup. People prefer sugar. Farmers will just grow other crops, more of which can be exported. And end tariffs on sugar. Sure, that means sugar imports, but this is economically far better. It also helps mostly poor countries. The whole point of global trade is to benefit from countries specializing in making something you can't make for a similar price (or can't make at all).
And the best way to become a net oil exporter again (we use to be Saudi Arabia, why we were rich) is to have high fuel efficiency requirements, get rid of pickup trucks, and pump more oil. 56m pickups use 32% of all transport fuel, 165m cars 24%, semis 23%. Pickups should be CNG or electric.
10
If a recession happens in the next 12-18 months then in January 2019 we may have a Democrat President and Senate as well the House.
The GOP will be crippled for at least 8 years, maybe longer, unless they act soon and get the current occupant of the White House to move back to Manhattan.
20
is that the Manhattan in Russia?
5
@Brad
If a recession happens Trump and his supporters will blame the Dem majority in the House.
3
@brian
As an ex-President will he receive Secret Service protection even though he resides (alone) in a compound in Russia?
Can the SEC and the FCC get together and block Trump's phones from twitting? Is anyone looking at the possibility that there are insiders who might know when he's going to disrupt the markets?
15
@b fagan we all know, every other day he switches positions
Perhaps Humpty Dumpty thinks that tariffs will cover the huge trillion dollar deficit he and the GOP created. When the recession hits there won't be any revenue to cover the stimulus spending necessary to get the economy moving again. The GOP won't approve a stimulus anyway, they want to starve the beast.
Conservative values are an expensive extravagance.
27
Trump’s incompetence and erraticness is destroying the economy. He’s hurting farmers, small manufacturers, investors, and now the yield curve has flipped indicating a recession is on its way. What good is a tax cut if you don’t have income?
36
@Nb
If you’re a one-percenter or corporation who actually benefited from the tax cuts, I doubt it really matters.
5
I'm with Downtown Pete and have been arguing for some time that the possibility of market manipulation requires investigation along with all the other smells associated with this administration.
73
@RJP232 Spot on.
Thank God. This means people are starting to pay attention.
14
Trump is reckless and destructive.
19
The Republican regime of the deep state from Putinland is destroying our economy on a daily basis. Trump's buddies are getting away with crimes (Acosta). Trump's inability to understand economics is going to bring this country into a recession. By now, all the Trump voters should be enjoying his business inabilities — ( so much for his "art-of-the-deal") which is making us all suffering from losses in our salaries, businesses, and stocks. This man is mentally unfit. The Republican Party is complicit in these crimes on an hourly basis. My retirement is tied to the stock market and it changes on a weekly basis. No fund manager can guess what this orange menace is doing next
37
@Nicholas But, but I thought he went to Wharton.
7
@Nicholas, if you can't afford to lose it you have no business in the stock market
@MR
I recall that it was an undergrad program. I know local realtors who are smarter than this liar.
1
Insult, lecture, bully, and push the heads of China, South Korea, Mexico, Canada, France, and Germany on trade. Isolate any and all who can help us, blow up treaties and trade pacts and years of cooperation with close allies. Decide, against conventional wisdom and proof that trade deficits are bad for the U.S. Snuggle up to Saudi Arabi, even though we don't need their oil, and Russia. Poke every adversary to create a crisis. Push to dissolve the EU and the U.N. Throw grenades in every tent, then stand back and watch the flames grow.
A few days later, cajole, flatter, call on the phone all the same people. Claim you didn't say or mean any of that. Walk back all the insults. Get a vague agreement of understanding and compromise. Claim a huge victory for the people of the United States ( meaning only the Red Hats). The next day, drop yet another Twitter bomb and take it all back. Watch the Stock Market tank.
Repeat.
36
When Trump was campaigning, he asked “What have you got to lose?” Well, here ya go.
70
Putin gave the order to destroy the US economy while there is still time. His chief Republican boy is just doing business.
11
We soon will bury perhaps one of the best 1 term presidents, as we endure & suffer through the worst 1 term (I hope!) president.
12
Now that the high from tax cuts, a military spending bing and derugulation has worn off he wants to take away the Chinese Fentanyl.
5
I keep posting, Trump is great for China. US leadership in the world is disappearing and China is filling in that void. Yes, in the short run it is costing China. But they can afford it and in the long run it is well worth it.
Please stop writing articles about China aggression and start writing about US stupidity.
32
It would be interesting to know if any one is financially benefitting from these almost daily stock market gyrations triggered by Trump’s increasingly unhinged tweets. It would be no surprise if Mueller’s team is looking into this, given the unsavory business reputation the President has created for himself. Any person of authority with a sense of responsibility for his actions would be circumspect about such comments made with no concern for the economic consequences.
25
History has a nasty habit of being cyclic. Think back for a moment to 2006 and the run-up to the 2008 depression (sorry, folks! It was indeed a depression, not a recession). Many of the same kinds of things were occurring then as now. Then, the lies related to weapons of mass destruction, lobbyist Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiracy, rampant subprime loans and robo-signing on "jumbo, interest-only" mortgages, Mark Foley's house pages' inappropriate e-mail scandal, UN sanctions North Korea, Republicans lose mightily in midterm elections & lose control of the House, and Rumsfeld resigns, just to name a few. Time to pay off your credit card debt, stash some cash in a safe place, provision the bomb shelter, and hunker down; it's going to get ugly.
13
Want a markey boost? Lift the irrational tariffs on NAFTA partners, immediately.
8
Just knowing that there are at least a trillion, trillion stars in the universe somehow makes this stock slide seem very insignificant.
4
@CC unless your retirement money is tied to the market then it's troubling to say the least. Trump needs to keep his big mouth shut on economic matters and stick to no-collusion rants. Or maybe he benefits from these massive sell offs he causes.
1
I am just shocked that Trump’s bellicose behavior toward economic/fisca matters is creating a failing market. Who knew this would happen???
10
How much is Trump making off his tweets? Congress should look at his taxes to find out.
17
A recession may be the best thing to happen to the country. It's beginning to look like a large percentage of voters only care about economic issues. The only thing that would separate Trump from his base of deplorables is a hit to the wallet. Maybe then, congress would finally do something to stop the continual attack on law and order and on the foundations of this country.
31
Your point about the effects of the economy on public sentiment is spot on but the link with voter turnout and awareness doesn’t acknowledge that in financial matters we as a county are nearly illiterate. Thus, a market crash caused by Trump’s impetuous nature will easily be spun to blame liberals, Democrats in office at every level, immigrants, past administrations going back to Coolidge, CNN, California wildfires and GM.
7
You would think that anyone who makes investment decisions would know better than to pay attention to anything that Trump says until the statement is verified by a reliable source. Trump says, Tweets, or does whatever occurs to his thinking "gut" at the moment. I just hope that no one invested in grain futures based on Trump's Argentine babblings.
7
This might sound really cynical, but - does anybody know who has advanced notice of Trump's market-moving tweets, and what these people are doing with that knowledge? Even a few hours of advanced notice that Trump is about to release tweets like these ones today could make a person a lot of money in a few hours. A "bet" on or against specific companies or even an entire index has a much higher chance of being right (in the money) if the bettor knows that Trump is about to make noise, and in which direction. I really wonder if anybody is looking into this type of "insider trading". With people like Mnuchin in charge of Treasury, and the Justice department lead by Whittaker, a man with a huge ethics problem himself, the usual watchdogs that would guard against such abuse are busy wagging their tail to please their master, not upholding laws and rules.
102
@Pete in Downtown
Trump has advanced notice of the market-moving tweets. That is known for certain.
@Pete in Downtown This is a legit concern that warrants investigation. This pattern of sell offs and buybacks has been occurring with greater regularity whenever he tweets about economy. Even Trump must see it. Talk about 'playing' the market. What a great spot he has found himself in.
6
What is really frightening, should there be a recession, is that Trump and the Republican Senate will adopt policies that will turn recession into depression. It will be 1930 all over again.
20
The stock market doesn't like uncertainty. I guess a President who's words (tweets) means nothing, leads to a DJI drop based on vapid, uncertain, and baseless info from the Prez.
7
Billy Bob, in rural ..., watches the yield curve as though it were his football team...
He will write to the president and speak of his concerns.
The president, a careful reader and omniscient steward of the economy, will consult his top advisors, Vladimir, Xi, MBS and Bibi, and make a decision that benefits us all.
It's great to live in the greatest country of all.
32
This admin has left us defenseless against a recession by cutting taxes, draining the treasury and blowing up the national debt... exactly the OPPOSITE of smart economic policy and what you should do in a growing economy.
What a fool we have for a president
141
Looks like then only sure thing about Trumps gut is that it is fat.
35
Not to worry. All Trump has to do to get out of this unscratched is blame Obama. Just to make sure you understand me: I am being sarcastic.
20
@King David It's depressing that we have to put humour warnings in our notes.
15
Blaming Obama will work with the racist farmers in Iowa. Meanwhile, their tariff offset payments are not as large as they expected. http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2018/11/25/federal-trade-assistance-trickles-iowa-farmers-hurt-trade-war/2065652002/
14
@Lona But they are making a fortune on ethanol
Trump's new book.."The Art of the Fail." With the subtitle.."how to tank a booming economy."
33
@ACJ Can't resist the temptation to ask the famous question: "What's the best way to make a small fortune?"
Give someone named Trump a large one!
11
Trump is okay with people and countries raiding America... As long as they're paying for the privilege... And people call this leadership? What a joke.
17
@Ziggy Republicans think our piggy banks, and future generations piggy banks, are all, and only, theirs to loot.
7
Thanks Republicans for ending the near decade long Obama expansion with your complete lack of understanding of economics.
64
Putin got such a bargain when he bought the Donald. How to defeat America without firing a shot.
72
State-run Fox News, Trump and his angry supporters have already declared the reports that the Stock Market fell 800 points FAKE NEWS...
...because it only fell 799.63 points.
30
Did Trump sell stock before his tweet?
18
Nope, Donnie Junior did it for him.
12
Who knows but did his kids?
5
Who will Trump blame this time? The Fed? Powell? Mueller? Obama? Hilary? CNN? - stay tuned...
11
I say, listen to Sam Waterston. He was so great on Law & Order etc. He says put your money under your mattress and wait until Trump leaves office. Sally Field is backing him up. I'm taking heed...
10
Someone on Fox and Friends must have mentioned that he wasn't man enough in his meetings with the Chinese.
8
How much more havoc can the buffoon known as Trump wreak?
He has absolutely no idea what he’s doing—and is the most conceited self-centered narcissistic entity to ever occupy the Oval Office.
15
@srwdm
But his die hard followers think he's the best, even if they are now standing in the unemployment/ food-stamp line.
7
My God. Do you think all of this is about his less than stellar performance at the GS 20 meeting? Or that he is knocked off the news by the death of a President whom everyone is praising as a patriotic, intelligent, kind, beloved statesman? A pathetic cry for attention?
26
This president is dangerous.
18
Today's market sell off is a clear vote of No Confidence in what the Trump Team delivered from G-20: nothing but confusion and mixed signals -- business leaders and investors both hate the uncertainty they have stewed up..
Braggadocio is running thin.
Big Hat, No Cattle. That's what both the Chinese and Mr. Market are telling us from opposite ends.
Psych research shows that the inept think they are doing great. Case in point here.
13
So today the very stable genius who has an IQ higher than Einstein, according to his propaganda, ran his mouth enough to cause the stock market to lose roughly one trillion dollars. That's $1,000,000,000. And over the last month Trump's trash mouth caused the market to lose close to 8 trillion dollars. That's $8,000,000,000.
But don't worry about Trump cause he is still making many millions of dollars off of his political office and bribes he claims are legal.
21
@niucame it's even worse than that. $1,000,000,000,000 is one trillion.
OK, I surrender. I'm getting 'tired of winning'. Let's just Make America Normal Again.
34
Can anyone tell me ,exactly , whee do these Billions in tariffs go???
4
Delusional Donald, a 6 time BANKRUPT, has no idea how economics, finance or business work.
Who knew that international trade was so complicated?
14
When the Bank of Dad bails you out everytime, you won't have a realistic view of finances.
1
Hmmm - and this guy's gone bankrupt how many times? I do not feel secure at this point.
9
@Andrew You felt secure before today, or any day since 20 JAN 2017?
6
Make that November 9, 2016.
1
@John Bassler I stand (and tremble) corrected.
"Tariff Man" Really? We wait breathlessly for your next branding effort, Donald. Marlboro Man, maybe?
You need a new ad team, one that's woke. One that saw the Women's March and the midterm results and knows they aren't alternative facts.
When Donald says "Make America Rich Again" that's just code for tax breaks for the 1%. Not help for farmers in Iowa, not help for workers laid off by GM. That's a fact.
We need a President for all of us. Not a Tweety Man for the 1%.
13
The farmers in Iowa have been unpleasantly surprised by how small some of the bailouts are. http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2018/11/25/federal-trade-assistance-trickles-iowa-farmers-hurt-trade-war/2065652002/
I suppose when they cannot meet their loans, they'll blame it on Obama.
2
Alarming news for the wealthiest 5% who own 90% of stocks. Meanwhile, over 150 million workers still can't find a friend in Congress, the courts, or corporate America. They are still waiting for their trickles.
15
I notice with some alarm that some Trump opponents seem to hope there is a recession, if that's what it takes to get rid of Trump. Hey- I am not one of his supporters, but I really don't want to suffer through another recession. In a recession, the middle class suffers most. We lose jobs, our 401ks go down, our homes lose value, so-no- I don't want a recession just to defeat Trump.
What on earth would we gain by the economic suffering of millions ? If that is the only way to defeat someone, we have only ourselves to blame.
6
@Gino G
Too late, it's coming....the Trump train is crashing, best get out of the way.. what's really funny, is, those in the mid-west that thought he was going to bring back manufacturing jobs, they will be the hardest hit, and they will be standing in that nasty entitlements line that they dislike so much, you know, the unemployment.food stamp line.
5
@Gino G
OH NO, we do not want a recession any more than someone in FL wants a hurricane. But what we want does not effect what is going to happen. FL is going to get hit by the storm. We are very, very likely to be hit by a recession because this guy has no consistent policy only whims and moods.
4
@Gino G
Trump doesn't follow opponents.
He follows orders- in this case Putin's.
1
Is Trump trying to take the whole country down because he is so infuriated at Mueller who is edging closer and closer to ensnaring Trump and his family for their dealings with the Russians. He is shaking in his shoes because impeachment or even arrest are looming large right now, so he is lashing out like a trapped animal. Or is it as my husband suggested, he cannot stand all the well deserved accolades and attention being focused on former President George H.W. Bush, so he is turning the attention back to himself? Bush's death reminded all of us, whether on the left or right politically, what a moral, decent President used to be like.
Please, as another commenter stated, take the man's phone away from him now, before he completely destroys the economy.
10
Recessions are generally fertile conditions for right-wing, authoritarian politicians. The world today bears that out as a result of the Bush Worldwide Recession.
4
@th
Actually the Bush recession gave us Obama, hardly a far-right-wing authoritarian politician.
the Great Depression gave us Delano Roosevelt. Hardly right wing.
10
If Trump is "raking in billions" from the tariffs, that amounts to an admission that working people have already paid back their meager, temporary tax cut. I guess Republicans are OK with big money going to the government, as long as it's not coming from rich people.
8
I hope someone is monitoring the Trump family's stock portfolio because it seems in line with everything else we know about the Trumps that the Don (or any of the others) could buying and selling securities before tweeting things that would be to their advantage.
Real presidents set up systems to ensure us that this wasn't happening, but Reality Show Don's approach to cleaning the swamp seems to be to jump in head first to scare everything else out.
21
Dude, Trump doesn't even want to show his tax return. And we let him get away with it!
4
@cary My money would be on the Kushners. Trump's kids are somewhat dim and I don't see them pulling the off.
Macro Econ 101: tariffs ultimately raise consumer prices => tariffs are a tax on consumers. Trump is committing fiscal malpractice. ‘First do no harm.’ Wharton should withdraw Trump’s diploma.
26
This is great! I love winning. Thank you Mr. Tarriff Man.
30
@BSB Hilarious, and true!
2
Hmmmm, it’s my undertanding the tariff is not paid by the exporter, but by the importer. So Trump’s statement that tariffs make America rich means US companies pay the government more for products they import. Seems like a back-handed tax to me that doesn’t make Americans wealthier at all. Maybe, however, this tax..err tariff... will help offset the tax cut that benefited mostly the wealthy. Thanks President Trump.
29
There's nothing like having the unstable president tweeting about the stock market to make it more unstable then him.
The only thing more scarier then that is the fact that he's in charge of the security of our nation!
63
@BTO It's even better when he tweets about nuclear warfare.
3
Sad to say, we told you so.
The grotesquely inflated market, along with the removal of regulation, has led us down the primrose path.
This time, Obama won't be there to save us all. Just our cowardly "stable genius" bullying fool-in-chief.
150
@Susan Anderson
Mr Obama’s administration did not hold any of the perps accountable for the Great Recession financial debacle.
Yes, the primrose path.
5
@srwdm
That accountability -- and trials and prison sentences -- did not occur remains evil. However, the world's economies did not collapse.
Any bets on what would have happened if the current White House had been in place?
18
@srwdm
Yeah, sort of. But you've forgotten that he was elected on a platform of reconciliation and moving on. Took him a long time to give up on converting the opposition to sensible ideas and ideals. He surrendered too much, but it's not an easy judgment call to make, ecept with 20/20 hindsight
4
More ignorance and incompetence from the worst President in the history of our great nation. Thankfully caring Americans will remove him from office on November 3, 2020.
110
@Tom Augaitis:
Are there enough "caring" Americans among us? From where I sit, I see widespread ignorance, fear and hate.
15
@Tom Augaitis
I agree wholeheartedly... if we can hold on that long.
2
@Tom Augaitis
Maybe, if we're lucky, before that - and in chains. Hello Guantanamo!
5
It would fascinating to know how this reporter determined what warning the bond market was "sending". And was the warning in addition to, or despite, being a "safe haven"?
Strange, how journalists know why markets go up and down, but never in advance.
@jrd
Mybe because they are smarter than you are. In fact what they are pointing out is very true...but you's have to semi educated to understand the word inversion.
@James Young Why be insulting to a civil comment?
There are many within the orbit of the mighty gaseous sun that is Trump. Perhaps the reason for them being there is not gravity but that they would get early access to his ruminations and tweets . i find it impossible to believe that with his evident lack of self control that there would not be the opportunity for some to profit by getting on the right side of the outcome of his statements and actions. Where is the investigations into those who may have profited by , for example , short selling on any market around the world prior to this most recent diatribe.
12
@Bill Weaver
Follow Ross' and Mnuchin's money!
6
We often bash Trump and Congress for their incompetence, with good reason.
But the market events from Monday and Tuesday are not about them, even if Trump made the tweets.
We now have 2 years of hard evidence that Trump constantly lies. Who the heck can continue to fall for his lies and make actual financial movements based on them?
The market is not Republican nor Democrat. Why are people even taking seriously anything uttered by the President, two years into his term?
If anything tells me that we’re heading for a severe crash is these sort of events that show me the stupidity of the people that make market purchase decisions based on something that Trump tweeted.
Everyone thinks they can ride the dangerous carnival coaster and that they will be the only smart ones to know when to get off. No, if the market can jump Monday due to a Trump tweet, and fall on Tuesday due to another tweet, nobody, NOBODY is smart enough for anything here. It’s all coming crashing down at some point, even if you’re not on the ride itself.
15
@Miguel sanchez:
The market sees past tRump's lies; it's not acting on his Tweets or his, otherwise, statements. Typically, the market acts upon current data and the significance of such as it relates to the intermediate future, say, six to 12 months.
What it did act upon today is the yield curve (and has been for the last six months); the yield curve is the benchmark for anticipating the next recession. . .
1
Pure market manipulation. Legal or not. Wonder if donnie jr was short the market today. Who will hold these crooks' feet to the fire. Rhetorical question.
18
Trump, wrecking the U.S economy, the thing he is best at!
9
I know this may sound a little paranoid and pessimistic but has anyone considered the possibility that some folks in the Trumpian kingdom, including the king himself, are intentionally creating this type of chaos for at least 2 reasons: one, to divert attention and two, to make money? I’m not sure if Don is smart enough to make all these calculations but he sure knows very well how to create havoc and turmoil and he and his goons are profiting from it. Given their greed for more wealth, power, control and lack of moral or ethical intentions, wouldn’t you expect these kinds of acts? Look at all the illegal things they have done, and continue to do, before and after he took office. They have (he has) no true interest in the people in this country, all he/they care about is themselves. Maybe he’s not smart enough to do this by himself, but others on his team are evil enough to manipulate him so that they all personally benefit. Lock them up!
12
So much for having a self-described 'very smart guy' and multiple bankrupted business 'genius' in charge of the economy. Who by the way, went to the 'very best' schools, too. So there. Put that in your deflated portfolio and smoke it.
18
Based on Trump's record of bankruptcies and failures, this is totally what one would expect from this administration. Trump Air, Trump University, Trump Wimes and Meats, Trump's Football League and so many others, now including Trump's Make America Great.......
13
@Mike:
Don't forget the casino bankruptcies.
The league of economic "advisers" he has appointed is sure to flush the US economy down the toilet; look at the trend. . . Utter incompetence.
2
I wonder if one of his investments somewhere needed propping up?
4
He does NOT understand how tariffs work! Hurry Mr. Mueller.
13
How much richer did America get today after losing 3% off the S&P?
11
I thought he was The King of Debt. Now he's The Tariff Man? Inmate No. 0735428 would sound better.
69
Why wouldn't the stock market be in trouble? Over the last decade since the financial crisis, the Fed has dumped 4.5 TRILLION conjured dollars into our economy, and then Trump and Congress poured in another 1.5 trillion with their tax cuts. How could the stock market NOT have gone up????? And how could it not now fizzle since the money flood of money has been turned off? Along with the stock market, our nation's debt has gone up too, and now, with rising interest rates, we will pay higher interest for our borrowing. The government and private citizens are deeply in debt, and we are all told--THE ECONOMY IS GREAT. We are all living in a dream: we should be screaming in the Streets!
12
Remember this man is still engaged in money making schemes while being the president. I wonder how his portfolio is manipulated prior to each of these announcements. Which family member benefits while the rest of the country suffers.
229
@Kathleen
His portfolio, if he has one, probably consists of large amounts of real estate leveraged to the Russians. Likely unaffected by his incompetence.
6
@Kathleen It's not just his portfolio. Let's remember who is the money behind him, McConnell, DeVos, every member of his cabinet actually, and all his 'friends'.
10
@Kathleen My thoughts exactly! Trump's primary interest is his own wealth. It would almost be against his nature not to profit from the chaos he produces; he won't be stupid enough to do so directly, but I would love to see an investigation into who benefited especially from these Trump-induced market gyrations.
8
As long as we exist in a capitalist economy, what the market does directly affects the rest of the economy . . . so, please retire the moniker that 'Wall Street isn't Main Street'. What is happening affects everyone of us--retirement funds, college endowments, loans to farmers or small manufacturers. Trump and his cronies are insulated from this (assuming he has even a tenth of what he claims he has)--they don't care if students default on college loans (it's the student's fault for aiming high) or a retiree is forced into penury (it's their fault for not saving enough) or a farmer goes broke (didn't fill out paper work for the bailout). The chaos that Trump has created will be with us for more than just the next election cycle or two--one of the missing elements in this discussion is the growing simultaneous effects of the climate crisis. As our economy is stretched to the breaking point, we will be unable to respond to the needs resulting from large scale disasters or the slow violence of displaced populations, failing infrastructure or any number of concerns.
84
President Trump wrote:"WE are right now taking in $billions in Tariffs. MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN." Well, there is a problem with that sentence. The one whom pay for the tariffs are not the Chinese businessman but the American consumers. So the final sentence should be MAKE AMERICAN CONSUMER PAY MORE.
181
The sun, moon, and stars rise and fall on the broad shoulders of Our Dear Leader Trump.
Our economy, our wealth, and our self-esteem as a nation rises and falls on the broad shoulders of Our Dear Leader Trump.
Would could go wrong?
13
crazy growth in only one minuscule part of the whole body causing the whole body to buckle wildly until it breaks.
american capitalism or cancer?
both.
7
Why would anyone believe Trump after innumerable lies about everything that comes out of his mouth? When he came back and said all is well and there was a truce with China, it was just like him coming back and saying, "There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea." Really? Yet, the market reacted positively to his nonsense yesterday.
I have yet to read or hear a truthful statement come out of Trump's mouth since he was a candidate. As many have said, he is completely incapable of uttering a truthful statement, vocally or in a tweet. And today, people apparently came to their senses and realized, "Wait a minute...that "truce" coming from Trump yesterday...
28
One can only hope that Mr. Trump will soon be referred to in the past tense.
52
@jgm He will win again in 2020 unless Democrats moderate their hard left stance.
@MM Not if the economy tanks before the election...
1
@MM:
Democrats stand for:
1. Public investments in world-class schools and infrastructure for all.
2. Free public universities and first-class technical training for all;
3. Single-payer Medicare-for-all;
4. Higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for single-payer;
5. Using antitrust to break up powerful monopolies on Wall Street, Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Agriculture.
6. Getting big money out of politics.
- RR
Not too "hard left", if you ask me. If the average tRump supporter had the capacity to understand the above, well, . . .
4
And the republican fakes in congress keep playing the fiddle.
And the Trump base dances all the way to oblivion.
And the twit continues to tweet.
80
The perfect cure for the Trump plague is a good old recession, right around March of 2020. It is the bleach we need to clean out the stench of this disease. It got rid of the Republican infection in 2008, and it will get rid of them again in 2020.
53
@DrG
If we can last that long.
2
You know how various outlets are keeping track of all Trumps lies?
Maybe its time to keep track of these sorts of things? Trump speaks/tweets and the market slips chart/graph.. Should be simple enough to do.
Might give Mr. Krugman something else to chart, and wonk-on.
Occasionally connect them to his lies as well, see how they all link-up...really give the NYT's graphics dept something to play with...
5
@Boregard
Yes, and more attention should be paid to how these announcements affect Trump's bottom line and those of his family and associates.
4
When I watch business shows on TV, read business articles on the internet, and hear business shows on the radio, people are always talking about the "fundamentals" of the U.S. economy, which they reckon are strong. It seems to me that one or the the most fundamental economic "fundamentals", and one that is never mentioned is this : Until January of 2017, we had in the White House a man of extraordinary talents, intelligence, political skills and a deep love for America. Today the situation is very different. What we now have is a vulgar, know-nothing, 4-times bankrupt narcissist and con-artist who couldn't pour urine out of a boot, even if the directions were written on the heel. In 2009, President Obama was handed an economy in a deep state of trouble (in a depression, really), and over a period of 8 years fixed it. For the past 2 years, the economy has, in my opinion, coasted upward under the inertial momentum imparted to it by Obama and his advisers. Considering the level of "talent" now residing in the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, we're lucky we're not living 1930 all over again, although I believe that is still very possible. It seems like a good metaphor for our current economic situation is : We're all in a Boeing 747 that is roaring down the runway, with an untrustworthy troglodyte in the left seat of the cockpit. A zoo specimen that has a demonstrated knack for fouling things up.
Can this trip end well ? I worry ...
46
@Iman Onymous
To add to that. We are all traveling in a spaceship traveling 67K miles/hr. That spaceship is covered by a thin delicate atmosphere with all of humanity and lifeforms as precious cargoes. The climate is now changing and fluctuating drastically in the past decades but is not a cause of concern for our president or his supporters.
Modest correction. More on the way kiddies The idea of “inversion” points to how phony the fiat paper push really is.
1
This Administration is the Ship of Fool’s. Disastrously, the American people are prisoners on this ship.
24
I’m just so tired of all this winning.
21
Another totally unnecessary recession on the way, courtesy of more foolish and irresponsible Republican policies, after Obama worked so hard and so long to set us right after the last one. I'm getting really sick of this cycle, where I work so hard to move ahead only to have some GOP goofball scramble the game board -- again. And again. And again.
40
Don’t worry. Our next democratic President and leadership will clean up this mess. Such as they always do. The pattern continues....
1
I just don't see it. The world economy is just purring along arbiter at a slower rate that's all. Even trump's pontificatings can slow this economic train. imho. Employment's high and lots of folks have $$ in their pockets. Not yo worry. b happy
When will Wall Street learn what 60% of the nation already knows. You can't trust a word that comes out of Trump's mouth let alone allow it to influence your trading decisions. Following his every whim or spin will give this nation nothing more than a bed of quicksand to build our financial future on. This man is a 4 time bankruptcy disaster and puting your faith in him is to flrit with the biggest bancrupcy of all - that of the United State's economy. Get over him and get back to basics!
14
Who really cares? Putin is chuckling for sure but the class of investors who move the markets short term are even stupider and more thin skinned than trump. One day the markets will realize that mankind's survival on this earth is in doubt and that will be the day to sell short and drink some expensive wine laced with hemlock.
3
Why would anyone make a financial decision based on something our capricious president has said or tweeted?? He lies constantly. No sane person should believe anything that comes out of his mouth. 99% of what he's said he would do has not been done, if even attempted. He's been out maneuvered by China, North Korea and Russia, to name a few. He is truly impotent, except where protecting our ecosystem and bullying our friends are concerned.
7
Clearly, this is the fault of the democratically controlled House. Also, BENGHAZI!
23
Relax...Trump is only negotiating.
@Skilled. Yes, negotiating with other's money and livelihoods. As with his financial failings, when "negotiatons" fail, he will stiff us all and go home to riches made while in office.
@Skilled
Now I'm really worried.
Perhaps the markets also fell because Trump’s tweets reflect that the leader of the world’s largest economy has a horrifying and profound ignorance about tariffs and their effects. That should frighten anyone paying attention as he continues his destructive course. He is the existential threat that those who know him warned us about before the election. One can only hope that Wall Street and the Republican Party who have thus far looked away and tacitly condoned him out of greed and power plays, may finally become sufficiently rattled and demand his impeachment, for which there is already ample ground.
10
The importance of a President that understands capital markets and how it powers the economy can't be understated. Sending tweets out that create confusing and contradictory "noises" around complex trade matters between countries is exactly the type of impulsive behavior we are taught not to engage in when investing from the time we bought our first shares. Though he portrays himself as a business man, his failure to grasp the most basic appreciation of how capital markets function is deep cause for concern. Without this basic understanding and if cabinet members including the Secretary of the Treasury, the Special Trade Representative, and Commerce Secretary don't put a stop to this reckless behavior of unsupervised tweets, a series of small accidents he is creating will rapidly escalate into a serious collision with Wall Street and investors. The economy will suffer great harm.
15
Don't worry, because when we are in the next recession Trump will deny it. So that means we won't be in the next recession. It's just that 8 percent of the work force will be "lazy" and "not wanting to work" rather than not having jobs.
7
Get used to it folks. This is our reality for the next 2 years.
10
I am totally disgusted with Mr. Trump and the way he toys with our economy. While I can handle the ups and downs of the stock market, it is not pleasant to go through them just because Trump can't get his act together.
Let Mr. Trump take as much responsibility for the recent stock market swings as he was willing to take when the market was going up.
On second thought, I won't hold my breath; it'll never happen.
10
The problem with trump's deal makings is that there are never any firm details or commitments. Then he tweets that he won & everyone will see big changes very quickly. Does he not know that big changes never happen quickly? Farmers soy bean crops are worthless now & they won't see any changes for months & months. How long does milk surplus stay usable?
trump is clueless to the workings of world economy & trade. You may be able to see rapid results in real estate but it doesn't happen in the real world of people's lives.
I hope the stock market stays down so those fools who keep supporting trump because their portfolios are doing great see that he isn't a leader or a deal making genius.
9
A direct link between a big magnitude 3.24% market drop with uncertainty about what exactly Trump accomplished with China, if anything. Perhaps that will raise a few more GOP eyebrows?
3
Trump sowing confusion?! He can't even remember what his pal Xi agreed to do 24 hours earlier. Actually, Don Fredovich ("son of Fred" in Russian) is doing better than I expected at this point: I was sure he would have wrecked the economy and attacked Iran or North Korea by now....maybe we can "look forward" to such things in 2019.
4
YESSS! The ultimate higher power in America speaketh. Time for a clearing the swamp with a recession. Thank you GOP!
1
This slide in confidence is to be expected when a 5 year old is in charge of the economy of our country, as is the case today.
Trump's "gut" informs most all of his decisions.
His impulsiveness and impatience leads him to an inability to stick to one side of an issue for very long. His lack of curiosity and inability to read any insightful briefs puts him on the uninformed side of economic issues. He likes to float trial balloons, then changes his mind as he listens to Fox. His every thought on economics is filtered through his anti-globalist filter, and his free trade bent. He is strongly influenced by people who will be shown by history to be wrong such as Bannon, Navarro, and Bolton, and Lighthizer. Seasoned economic experts such as Gary Cohen are gone, no longer able to take him any longer. When will Mattis ( a strong defender of globalism and free trade ) depart?
No wonder Trump bankrupted so many companies he held. And now he gets to bankrupt an entire country and fiddle with it's economy like it was some gaudy bauble in his sand box toy collection.
30
As always this is not about anything near reality. The Big Jerk wants to keep looking like a Big Man - and does not care what that does to anyone anywhere. He could not keep casinos open with his phony baloney and we are supposed to trust him with the entire country's economy? Anything that does not glorify or kiss his ring is of course a waste of time. The market reaction is totally correct in that they have already factored in his instability and inability to grasp basic financial truths and don't want to float his boat with their dough.
10
Trump is ignorant. He doesn't understand and misrepresents how tariffs work.
The US Govt does NOT “take in” tariff money ... tariffs are (indirect) “taxes” on US importers/exporters & ultimately consumers (higher prices).
Stop lying to “We the People”.. and tell them that your “Tariff Man” tariffs are causing prices to go UP .... and these costs are largely passed onto the consumer.
15
@John Engelhardt. Tariffs are collected by the U.S. Treasury, just like any other import duty. Importers then seek to get reimbursed by consumers through higher prices.
1
Now, who is singing
Trump 2020?????
45, was, and is, a big mistake, to say the least.
6
Mr. Trump: Stop talking!!!! You are rattling the markets and destroying the lives of those of us you are near retirement. What you are doing is not in the best interest of the United States. How would you like it if you lost all your money?
4
@Concernedcitizen
He may be making money from these announcements.
"This might sound like so much jargon important only to bond market geeks. But it matters."
This patronizing, "dumbed down" tone is really not appropriate for a news article.
4
Pls lighten up, Nat. We are not all financial wizards. I appreciate the author realizing this. Remember, the "Books for Dummies" are enormously popular for those interested in learning.
2
So. Much. Winning.
11
How crazy, or should I say "criminal", is it that the President of the USA keeps falsely claiming the tariffs result in billions being paid to the USA economy? See this NYTimes article for the truth: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/us/politics/how-tariffs-work-china.html
For Trump to tweet "We are right now taking in $billions in Tariffs" and "Billions of Dollars are pouring into the coffers of the U.S.A. because of the Tariffs being charged to China" is just a straight outright lie.
It's no wonder most of anything he says has to be fact checked and generally ignored.
This is our leader?
He is a daily embarrassment to informed citizens. But worse, it seems his diminutive grasp of global economics is destroying the USA economy. Only his mind can see his pinhole path to success that reality seems to be circumventing.
15
The captain is headed for the rocks and ignoring the please to correct the course of the ship.
3
Trump, the sower of confusion and destruction in every way.
Wasn't that he's stated goal at the outset of his campaign and his presidency? All the while with his personal goal of enriching himself and his family at the cost of our democracy and economy. Why would his base ever believe he cared about them. His actions show all that he does not care.
GOP? Where are you to balance this rogue, money laundering president? In his pocket, no doubt, involved with some of his get richer schemes. I think of Mitch McC and his wife Elaine Chao's family's shadowy shipping company.
We mustn't forget Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) pointing out his GOP comrades, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in 2016. How many other GOP are compromised. Why don't they protect the nation from Trump, et. al.?
6
@E C Scherer
Why don't they protect the nation from Trump, et. al.?
Perhaps the rot goes deeper than we thought.
1
Just like it took eight years for Obama to clean up after the younger Bush mess and get the country back to progress and out of a near depression, so it will take another democrat another eight years to fix this mess that trump is creating in a few short years, having been handed a strong economy on a growth path. He was aided, very effectively, by the complicit republican congress.
Apparently, we don't learn from history. To elect such a con man shows a lack of critical and clear thinking and some weird belief in simple hucksterism and tag phrases. We are truly a country of morons.
194
@Mark
And Bush the Younger inherited a surplus from Bill Clinton, which was spent on wars and tax cuts, culminating in the Great Recession.
Its an established pattern that Republican voters don't seem to understand.
Luckily this time, we have a financial wizard at the helm.
17
@Mark The democratic system is poorly suited to making the correct long term decisions needed to deal with long term problems. Like climate change, voters will always vote for their short term personal gain over the long term benefit to the country and their heirs.
10
@Mark don’t overlook the impact of GOP gerrymandering in this fiasco. We aren’t so dumb as voters, we elected Hillary by a generous margin. But the badly skewed districting over turned the will of the people.
Hey...the Koch's got their cuts! The GOP cannot figure out blood from a stone!
4
Donald Trump played a savvy business man on reality TV shows. Full stop.
Our president knows nothing about economics, doesn't care, and most certainly doesn't care that his work to rip up a decent economic expansion will hurt Americans.
This is what you get when you elect an utter nincompoop.
24
@John He figured out how to beat seasoned politicians to become President. Let's see you figure that one out.
Having Trump babble conflicting messages day after day about pretty much everything except "The Wall" and "Hillary's emails" is not helpful to the stock market or anything else. A President is supposed to bring some sense of stability to the country and world to the best of his or her ability. Trump is kind of the Bizarro President isn't he?
5
@ Greg. Am I the only one that believes trump does things like this simply for the thrill he gets when the stock market reacts? Is it beginning to become clear that EVERYTHING he does is designed to show the world that he is the almighty and can build and destroy on a tweet? He is living in his reality show universe, and we are the contestants. I fear he does not know the difference, and we are not confronting but enabling his pathology in hopes that we might "win" his favor and not be the one who gets fired. DJT is playing his game and loving every minute of it. And the GOP does nothing as he trashes our country.
2
@ponchgal Interesting take on things ponchgal. Your comment reminds me of an old Twilight Zone episode titled "It's a Good Life". I see Donnie as the evil kid.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=twighlight+zone+episode+where+kid+puts+people+in+the+corn+field&view=detail&mid=1DA07375CC866A299AE81DA07375CC866A299AE8&FORM=VIRE
Trumponomics 101 - definition of tarrifs - A fancy way to raise taxes on everyone without saying the words "raise taxes".
i.e. Trump gives a tax cut to the rich then makes the rest pay with tarrifs.
4
Trump can't hold onto a position for fifteen minutes. If he doesn't suffer from dementia, then he suffers from having the shallowest grasp of economics (trade wars are easy to win...how's that working out for you, Donnie?), science, climate, international politics, and the fact that as President of the United States he doesn't get to be a (very bad) real estate developer anymore. (This IS the guy who couldn't make a go of a casino in Atlantic City...)
10
"Stocks fell on Tuesday, after President Trump sowed confusion over the status of a truce in the trade war between the United States and China..."
Sowing confusion as deliberate strategy? Or time for Cabinet members to "collude" and take action on the 25th?
Just thinkin...
2
@Joan Bee
Sowing confusion as deliberate strategy?
Actually, its a sound financial strategy if you know its going to happen.
1
Tariffs are fees paid by the buyers, not the sellers. We’re not making a dime off of the Chinese or anyone else. Only the US citizens are paying the tariffs. The president is too dense to understand that.
7
@Pb of DC Unfortunately so are Trump's supporters, so far.
4
OK Republicans. How many time does Trump have to crash the stock market before you notice he's leading us into another Great Recession? Your tax cuts and privatizations are going to destroy the global economy again. Support impeachment now! We cannot afford Trump's externalities.
2
What ever happened to “the art of the deal?”
Donald Trump has stiffed auto workers, factory workers, farmers, minimum wage earners and the lower strata of the American financial system. Those who foolishly voted for Elmer Gantry were seduced by the thrilling prospect of another know-nothing businessman (does Herbert Hoover ring a bell?).
They didn’t pay attention to the signs: to his shabby treatment of contractors and employees and his many bankruptcies. They did not—or could not—see that his financial empire was all smoke with the hard currency somewhere overseas where (it is alleged) his “fortune” washed clean the drug and sex and terrorist money that is the foundation of of the international crime syndicate.
Robert Mueller’s trying to untangle the spider webs of intrigue and obfuscation. Donald Trump inherited money but that doesn’t mean he knows anything about finance. We’re seeing that now and the Wall Street CEO’s are now taking fright at the monster they created. Who wouldn’t be surprised at another recession or even a depression?
So much winning.
8
trump will cause market turmoil with his tweets; the question is whether he is inept, indifferent or whether he does this stuff to show that he can and to try to bury his own troubles in yo-yo pain/gain for investors. There is only one trump event that would make the gyrations worthwhile, and that his removal from Office.
5
The DOW is 200 points higher today than it was five days ago. All you financial wizards can panic and get out of the market, please!
Someone tell Trump that when he lies about matters relating to tariffs or any other economic matters, the markets will punish him. The fool came away from G-20 with another fable, and we all pay.
3
This whole year the market has been on what one analyst called a "sugar high". Of course, the gutless, deficit-drunk republicans and Trump will blame Obama somehow as the recession settles in.
6
Republicans--far from being good for business and the economy--are costing me a tremendous amount of money.
I get to watch my investments plunge in value in an incredibly volatile stock market.
As a resident of a blue state, I get to watch as my federal taxes go UP. They're literally siphoning money out of my pocket and giving it to the ultra-wealthy and corporations.
I get to watch my friends struggle to find decent-paying jobs. Every time they are laid off by their corporate overlords they slip another rung down the ladder. In their 40s, they are so far from ever being on track to retire it's ridiculous.
And for what? For what? All of this is 100% unforced error.
19
The Trump sugar high reflected in the stock market hit reality today. Once a con man, always a con man.
6
With the intellectual firepower of the Trump Administration,
the market should go into a massive sell off!
3
He was right. I am tired of (his kind of) winning. So tired.
4
Financial whizz, moral leader, surely a shoe-in for a 2nd term.
3
So many warnings yet Trump does the opposite. I can see this eventually coming to everybody blaming Trump for the recession. Although the seeds were already planted when he took office, he watered them profusely.
1
My American company with American employees pays for the useless and economically damaging tariffs. Everyone knows this but the administration and Senate Republicans. We just can’t jack up our prices, the customers will go elsewhere. He is killing small American business owners with his dangerous and naive behavior.
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@Dink
so did you support trump in 2016? Why are there not more of you small businesses speaking out against trump & saying how he is killing your American businesses. He doesn't care about any of you because he is only worried about the mega wealthy donors & his friends.
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Trumpism is the glorification of ignorance and the empowerment of ignoramuses. From Global Warming to the Economy, the effects of ignorance are ever more palpable. This is just the beginning, much worse is yet to come as ignorance becomes more ingrained in the American culture.
Those interested in the Middle Ages will get to re-live a way of life so utterly dominated by ignorance that it was thought to have been left behind for good. History has a way of repeating itself, this time in the most unlikely of places.
6
Hold on to your 401k folks! Trump is making the stock market great again! Are we tired of all this winning yet?
6
Why does any one listen to, let alone act upon, anything he says. It’s just random words strung together, and often doesn’t even form sentences.
4
Most everything Trump has touched in his life has failed, from casinos to Vodka. He's about to add the American economy to the list.
13
If the market is following Trump's tweets I want my money out of the market NOW.
We will all be asking “ who let the Bear out?” In more ways than one.
1
What I fail to understand here is why the NYT, the other legitimate media, the Stock Exchanges, and all of the other responsible institutions in our society even bother to report or respond to anything that Trump says or does, except to counter him and shine the light on his lying and deception. Telling truth to lies, and resistance to ANYTHING he does, or anything his minions do, seems the only progressive course. After all, he hasn’t really accomplished anything constructive in two years in office, only disassembled our Democracy. Stop giving him a platform! Subtract his media attention, and he’s a big Zero.
6
He told the truth about one thing: I am sick and tired of all this winning.
3
Trump is completely crazy on trade. He brags about being a 'tariff man', apparently unaware that his OWN VOTERS are the ones who are directly paying the tariffs, not China. China pays for tariffs in one way: less quantity of items exported to the US. We pay for tariffs two ways: tariffs, aka TAXES, paid directly to the US government, AND lost jobs when businesses reduce their labor rolls thanks to the higher taxes.
Investors need to quit selling or buying based on Trump's twitter raves. He changes his mind every other day. You might as well decide to sell stocks based on the behavior of a drunk driver barreling around the Nurburgring.
Dump Trump if you want the economy to boom again.
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The so called "Tariff man", as he puts it, is about to crash the world economy. He ants to male "America Rich again". What, that really means, by crashing the stock market, people will dump stocks, and he, and his 1% buddies, will snap up bargain stocks. This si what happened after the 2008 crash.
Trump has already sent the market into correction. All gains are gone for the year. Now we are heading from 10%+ drop to maybe 1% to 20% drop.
Throw in that the bond market is signaling a pending recession. A recession, in which, the government will not be able to stimulate because of tax cuts made one year ago. Should I also mention that Europe, Asia and Australia are either in a recession or heading there. All wrapped in a package of nationalism.
As for how great the US economy is; most have not seen any from its start in December, 2007. Wages remain stagnant, and not keeping pace with inflation. Labor force participation rate continue sits decline. The unemployment rate is meaningless, because of a smaller active labor force and the low paying jobs being created.
Trump, and the GOP, have recreated 1938 all over again. If people don't realize it; we have been in Great Depression II fro nearly 11 years. Unlike, 1938, the US doe snot have the manufacturing infrastructure to recover and rebuild. It only has service jobs and wealth on paper.
3
trump just absolutely has to have the last word. Whether it’s for good or for bad matters not to him.
3
David Stockman has been calling for this.
The confusion of Trump's mindless tweets.
The rollbacks of the Koch-picked Trump cabinet.
The rollbacks of the Trump congressional GOP.
The shifting around of congressionally approved funds for projects Trump cancelled back to Treasury to fund Trump's white supremacist operation at the border.
Tax receipts that have dwindled since the Tax Scam Bill went into effect.
The oligarchy is looting our nation.
We are headed for a depression, not a recession.
---
Things Trump Did While You Weren’t Looking https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-2ZW
Reply293 RecommendShare
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What's the big problem? Every Republican presidential administration is the same -- they give big tax cuts to their corporate friends and bribe the middle class by giving them a comparative pittance. The whole charade is timed to perfection. After corporations and the financial class of the 1% have have taken the lion's share of profit (and exquisitely timed to coincide with Democrats are taking office, the economy, on cue, collapses into recession. Then the Republicans in congress set up shop in the peanut gallery and spread howls of fake news about how bad Democrats are at managing the economy the Republicans have just intentionally wrecked so as to enrich their 1% cronies and campaign funders.
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@Kip Leitner So true. So true!
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It’s truly amazing how some people still take what Trump says, or tweets, seriously.
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@Ran
So we are confronted with:
a) Take the tweets of POTUS seriously, in all their insanity, or
b) Don't take the tweets of POTUS seriously, due to their insanity.
A horrible position to be in, regardless, for the markets and for us.
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@Ran
No, what's truly amazing is that Trump is president of the United States.
This one, still unbelievable fact, perfectly sums up the horrible mess we're still in:
Donald Trump is president of the United States.
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China has been walking all over us for too long. We need a president who will take a harsh stance toward Chairman Jingping. We must make america great again!
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@Earl You're being sarcastic, of course.
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@Earl - You might want to read up on the amount of business the Trump family does with China.
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@Earl Is this a joke? A parody? Poe's Law is becoming more and more relevant as each day passes, with this preposterous excuse for a president we have. It's difficult to distinguish ignorance from satire.
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For whatever reason, and many reasons will be offered—any of which and none of which may be accurate to some degree, this year, the Dow has had a ceiling of 26,000. That’s what traders are comfortable with for 2018.
Another Republican trickle down recession on the way. Prediction--Republican solution : more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy!
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So President Trump tweets "Make America Rich Again." Is he talking about the post WWII economy, between 1946-1970 or so? A time when the wealthiest Americans paid much more in taxes, when unions fought for higher wages for middle class workers, when corporations weren't allowed to shelter profits offshore, when (many) corporations actually cared about their workers and not just profits for shareholders, and when there wasn't such huge pay disparities between CEOs and average workers?
Sure, I'm for all those things - let's bring them back again!
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@jrinsc
Right and to add insult to injury, those tariffs are being paid by the consumers aka the 99%. Cars and beer went up because of 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, GM, and now Ford, are downsizing; recession here we come.
Heckuvvajob Donnie
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@jrinsc
Also coming at a time when pent up demand due to the Depression and WW2 had the entire world looking to America for goods.
2
End the tariffs now, Trump. I can guarantee you there are millions of farmers in the Midwest who are not happy with how this is going. You tried, now time to rescind.
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Been posting this same comment since summer. Time yo post again.
The economy is not humming, it's on a crash trajectory.
I mark January 1, 2018 as the official end of Obama's economy and the beginning of the next economic crash trajectory.
Few supporting reasons:
1) corporate taxes were reduced by one third
1.1) creates artificial step increase in corporate performance without an actual increase in performance. (if a company's tax decreased by 1 million, its profit increased by 1 million, with zero change in goods and services produced)
1.2) money was used for stock buybacks, not for investment or wage increases
1.3) huge government borrowing (from China?) to make up for lost tax revenues, injecting billions of borrowed money into the economy, running up a huge goverment debt.
2) revoke Volcker rule, allows for propriety trading (gambling) with FDIC insured depositors savings by a few rich guys with access. This (combined with buybacks) is inflating another market bubble.
3) raised taxes (aka tariffs) on the middle class, which caused frontloading, another temporary bump in the economy.
4) two thirds of GDP is consumer spending, raised taxes (tariffs) places a huge drag on this.
The market is not the economy of course. Since it is not possible to time the market or the economy, it is impossible to know when the next crash will occur, but we are certainly on the trajectory.
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@oldBassGuy
Some of the items have already come and gone:
1) market bubble inflated to approx. 10% by September before it popped.
2) the frontloading has come and gone.
3) Midwest soy bean farmers and nail producers become welfare queens
We appear to be in pump and dump mode now? Connected insiders buy shares, wait until share prices are pumped up, short, next day another idiotic trade war related trump tweet, presto...
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@oldBassGuy
It usually takes Republicans 5 or 6 years to put the economy in the ditch with their dogmatic, "supply side" approach.
Overlay some of the crazy stuff the Sun King is doing on that and no telling what's going to happen....whatever it is will probably be really bad.
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@oldBassGuy-Additional problems: unaffordable housing, prices on goods (especially food) will rise, student debt, etc. and on it goes....
9
Maybe Congress needs to step up and amend the trade laws to limit what a president can do in levying tariffs, especially under the guise of “national security” an often nebulous determination.
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Remember the tax cut plan that passed less than a year ago from the Republicans? I thought lower tax rates for big corporations would help the stock market. Who could have saw this coming?
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@Jim
Lower tax rates for big corporations only help the economy if those extra dollars are invested in the economy, not if they sit in the personal accounts of the rich Republicans who benefited from the tax cut.
6
"Who could have seen this coming?"
Democrats, that's who. How many times are we going to do this? Every Republican president since Reagan has done the same thing--cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations--and the result is exactly the same every time. We get a few years of growth and the market soars, then everything crashes and, since they always raise the debt, we wind up spending the next several years working our way out of a recession. Reagan did it, HW Bush, W. Bush, and now Trump. And every time the growth is shorter and the recession is longer. And every time a Democrat has to come in and clean up the mess: Clinton had a surplus when he left office (that was wasted by Bush) and Obama had full employment (under 5%) and cut the deficit by 2/3. This republican ideology has never worked and people keep falling for it.
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@JV
In addition to tax cuts for the wealthy, each iteration of this recurring horror movie is some kind of loosening of the reins in the financial sector.
1) Reagan: SEC 10b-18 stock price manipulation
2) Bush 43: Glass-Steagall [1]
3) Trump: Volcker rule
[1] yes, I know Clinton signed Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act in 1999, did Clinton really have any choice when one considers Clinton's impeachment on December 19, 1998
1
A recession SHOULD matter to Trump, as it SHOULD hurt his campaign for 2020, if his policies on trade are responsible for precipitating the financial dip. Although to bank on anything sensible happening in U.S. politics in the near future is asking A LOT.
15
I'm hoping he'll be in jail by then.
6
Add to Mueller's laundry list to investigate: market manipulation and insider trading.
I certainly hope the SC's office has eyes on 45 & friend's stock portfolios and when they're buying/selling compared to timing of Twittler's inane pronouncements.
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Thank you Republican leaders! Hope you're enjoying you're tax cuts. You could dump Trump anytime you want, but won't because he owns your ignorant base and you need to give your donors more tax cuts, deregulation and right wing wacko judges. As my retirement funds fizzle with Trump's idiocies, may you fizzle faster.
447
Is this a question of the very wealthy balancing the benefits (to them) of the Trump/McConnell/Ryan tax cut against the way Trump's lack of stability (tweets. public statements, relationships, you-name-it) effects the markets?
The Republican Party won't do anything, but will the Kochs, the Mercers, Sheldon Adelson? Or am I being naive in assuming that Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Bankfein and the rest can't find ways to turn a profit out of this situation as well?
Interesting developments in France lately. Wonder if Fox News is covering them.
20
Every market bounce someone makes money. Every big bounce someone makes big money. trump must get a cut.
2
aren't the billions in tariffs coming from Americans who have to pay the extra freight? it's not coming from China.
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@Sarah Mac
Indeed, but don't expect Trump to actually know what a tariff is.
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@Sarah Mac A tariff is a tax and they will be paid by all Americans.
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@Sarah Mac
The point is to make foreign goods more expensive so local goods become more attractive. Of course it drives up the price of the local goods. Ask the car companies who are now all competing for American Aluminum.
So much winning!
149
@walkman I'm blinded by the victory.
11
At this rate Trump is going to keep implementing policies which continue to destroy America, (to the extent you can even call any of the ruinous things Trump does policies), the Republicans will do nothing but enable and defend him, and then Trump will keep Tweeting until he triggers a world-wide depression.
Once that happens, Trump will blame someone else, likely former President Obama, and finish by attacking the press for fake news when it reports that the stock market just crashed. Meantime, Fox News will parrot everything Trump says, and he won't lose the backing of any of the Americans in his base. Even if Trump burns the country to the ground he'll be fine as long as there are a half-dozen barefoot children somewhere in South America, over a thousand miles away, who happen to be walking in a northward direction.
Trump's new line might as well be: "Recessions and Depressions are good, and easy to win."
397
@Robert B Well, he'll soon have a Democratic house he can throw blame on. Usually I don't ascribe a President's actions to directly causing recessions, but in Trump's case I will make an exception.
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@Robert B In 2008, just before the election, Hannity said Democrats talking too much were causing a "psychological" recession. Later that week GWB panicked. He and Hank Paulen at Treasury, asked Pelosi for a blank check ASAP - in the trillions. She refused without knowing where it was going.
3
@Robert B
Trump is the best investment Putin ever made. He's the gift that keeps on giving.
6
"This might sound like so much jargon important only to bond market geeks. But it matters."
As a retiree dependent in large part on my meager retirement investments that supplement my meager social security benefits you bet it matters.
And it is no small matter for myself and other retirees to see an entire year's gains wiped out.
Hopefully Mr. Tariff Man will face Mr. Sheriff Man soon and some justice gets served up!
911
@Mr. Bantree It is terrible that so many retired Americans are at the mercy of the stock and bond markets for their income. It is totally unpredictable and one has no control over ones assets. Frightening to me as an 80 years old who does have some rental income along with social security and therefore is not in such danger.
19
Well if you are in the stock market you have to take the ups and downs. It is due for a major correction, so you may want to lessen your exposure.
6
@Matthew
I think we all understand the fundamental risks of market investment.
What we don't need however is a President behaving erratically in both his belief that trade wars are great and his contradictory public comments that add unnecessary volatility.
Trump's irresponsible actions do not fall under the category of expected market ups and downs.
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It should be kept in mind that ten years ago this week, the FDIC increased the amount of insured deposits from $100,000 to $250,000 per acct/SSN, per institution. At the same time, the Federal Reserve allowed certain investment banks and other "non-bank" entities to issue FDIC-insured Certificates of Deposit. Thus Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley became bank holding companies, along with General Electric, American Express and entities such as Toyota financial. Can anyone think of a greater recipe for disaster if we have another financial meltdown such as 2008? Perhaps the "safe" money flows in US treasuries thus knocking down interest rates. But can the FDIC pay out the hundreds of billions if not trillions in insured deposits if gambling houses like Goldman and Morgan go under? Stay tuned....
20
It seems Trump constantly has very positive Twitter comments then very negative comments - the stock market constantly reacting - no Einstein needed here who is raking it in.
36
Somebody needs to check and see if he bought stock last week and then sold it yesterday. That would be "smart" by his definition, if he can get away with it.
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@roseberry
Yep....I wouldn't be surprised if some of his family members or associates are shorting the markets
35
@roseberry: Be sure than it was done through a bogus company in a tax haven.
21
and criminal.
14
Well, wouldn't you know that the kleptocratic Grinch in the Oval Office would find a way to "steal Christmas." Now that the sugar high from the ill-advised tax cuts has passed, the perfect storm of unaffordable tax cuts, financial deregulation, and an economic jolt like "Tariff Man" Trump's trade war with China is about to push the economy into recession. With Americans already paying an extra 10 percent tax (aka tariff) on $250 billion in Chinese goods, the threat of even more spells disaster. Let's hope we remember the lesson of 2008 that no one is "Too Big To Fail" and no one is "Too Big To Jail."
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@Paul Wortman
But, sadly, none of the Too Big to Fail went to jail.
I've been gradually investing money in a global index fund that has 63% of its stocks in the US, and about 95% in western markets.
Is this a good time to temporarily withdraw? Or should I wait out the storm that might be coming?
1
@Daniel Bolstad
That depends on your personal tolerance and your time line. Markets abhor chaos and 2019 portends to be very politically chaotic. If you have decades to recover, you can view any downturn in the markets as a buying opportunity.
One article written during the Great Recession by the greatest investor of our time helped reassure many of us with its wisdom and perspective:
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html
Good Luck.
Get out while your still can!
@Daniel Bolstad How many years until you plan to retire?
1
Will someone please take away this man's phone or shut down his Twitter account?
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@mjbarr I agree. If he wasn't so dangerous, he'd just be pathetic.
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@mjbarr
Where are the Russian hackers when we need them?
21
@mjbarr. The way he uses the platform for stuff like obstruction of justice and witness tampering you'd think Twitter would at least have some policy about using their platform to commit crimes? Try selling fenced goods on EBay openly.
11
A Recession doesn’t matter to Trump and his buddies. They got their millions in tax cuts and the biased Supreme Court. Too bad for the little guy.
595
@RP Jamie Dimon said today that a recession wouldn't be that bad because J.P. Morgan would have great opportunities!
26
@RP
It will matter to them come 2020.
26
@RP-The wealthy will get to buy up more assets at fire sale prices.
13
"This might sound like so much jargon important only to bond market geeks. But it matters."
It will matter to Traitor Trump's mob when they start losing their jobs. Hoping that starts happening soon.
87
No need to panic yet.Consider what happened leading up to the Great Recession: The three-year bond yield moved above the five-year in August 2005, more than two years before the recession began in December 2007. The more closely watched indicator is when the two-year bond yield moves above the 10-year bond yield, something that hasn’t happened yet
11
@Adam But did we have a tariff war in 2005 and an impending explosion in national debt? Not to mention a completely corrupt administration obsessed with enriching themselves through legislation changes irregardless of the economic impact on the 99% of other Americans. These will be an accelerant to an economy bound for recession, as well as exacerbating to the depth and length of it.
36
@TheUglyTruth Maybe not. But we did have a terribly deregulated financial market causing one of the worst housing slumps in American history. This lasted for years before the bubble finally burst
6
@Adam It's getting close on the yield curve. And in 2005 the Fed had real ammo to combat conditions. They have way less manoeuvreability now. The Trump recession will be here within a year!
5
Let us hope this recession will be the last disaster of the Trump administration. Yes Trump owns this economy.
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@Steve
In total agreement with you, right here in Roque Bluffs.
7
@Art
I thought I was all alone in Washington County.
4