Today, the stock market is getting crushed. President Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, threatened "massive" tariffs on China. He said he was responding to what he said was China's plan "to impose Export Controls on each and every element of production having to do with Rare Earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it’s not manufactured in China."
He said: "I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so."
At last check, stocks had turned sharply lower, tossing early-day gains: The Dow was down 0.85%, the Russell lost 1.9%, the S&P 500 gave up 1.78% and the Nasdaq slumped 2.2%.
Thursday Reading:.
The preliminary University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment data for October also was reported today. It might be soft data, but absent the hard data from government agencies, investors might be inclined to give it a little more weight.
Unsurprisingly, it showed that Americans continued to hold tepid views of the economy. The preliminary number on the index was 55, a tick down from 55.1 last month but still higher than the 54.2 analysts expected. Current expectations saw a small bump, future expectations fell, and inflation expectations remained the same.
Americans' lukewarm approach to the economy is no surprise to anybody on Wall Street. Weaker jobs data and still-elevated inflation have been two ingredients fueling hopes for further rate cuts but also complicating the Federal Reserve's policy-making equation.
TurboTax Via TheStreet:
-- Noah Weidner, Markets Reporter
