Stock Market Suffers Deep Decline Over Trump Trade Wars, Tech Stocks

The Dow Jones Industrial Average for the week

Wall Street took a dive Tuesday turning negative for the year.

Target led the way after reporting weaker than expected earnings for the previous quarter

From CNBC:

The 30-Stock Dow fell 450 points after dropping nearly 400 points in the previous session. Earlier in the day, the Dow was down nearly 600 points. The S&P 500 dropped 1.3 percent, but also traded well off its session lows. The Dow and S&P 500 were up 1.2 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively, for 2018 entering Tuesday.

Target fell 10.4 percent after reporting weaker-than-expected earnings for the previous quarter. The company also posted lighter-than-forecast same-store sales, which is a key metric for retailers.

Tuesday's decline came a day after members of the popular "FAANG" trade —Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google-parent Alphabet — all closed in a bear market, down more than 20 percent from their 52-week highs. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq dropped 1.7 percent and 3 percent, respectively, on Monday while the Dow fell 1.6 percent.

Experts point to Donald Trump's trade wars, a slowdown in the global economy and the recent cloud that's hung over Big Tech stocks for the decline.

That said, most say the actual fundamentals of these stocks are solid, but that doesn't seem to matter to investors today.

Stocks are opening sharply lower on Wall Street as a rout in major technology companies continued.

The early drops put major indexes back into the red for the year. https://t.co/hvztlJZrY8 pic.twitter.com/2muQr838zB

— ABC News (@ABC) November 20, 2018

When Wall Street wipes out a year’s gain, Donald has nothing to brag about it. His recession is starting. https://t.co/oeka7LSklW

— Barbara Malmet (@B52Malmet) November 20, 2018

Trump Administration To Pay $4.7 Billion To Farmers For Trade War Started By Trump

Donald Trump

Well, this is rich.

Donald Trump starts a trade war with China, and now will pay $4.7 billion to American farmers who have lost income to clean up the mess.

From NPR:

The Department of Agriculture will pay $4.7 billion to farmers growing soybeans, cotton and other products hit by tariffs in the Trump administration’s hard-line trade war with China, announcing the first batch of payments from a $12 billion government aid package.

Starting next Tuesday, the agency will take applications from farmers who produce corn, cotton, dairy, hogs, sorghum, soybeans and wheat — products that were targeted in China’s retaliatory tariffs, after the U.S. imposed a 25 percent levy on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports.

The government payout was sharply criticized when it was announced last month, with farmers and Trump’s fellow Republicans saying that the administration was paying billions in response to a problem it created. Congress was not required to vote on the billion-dollar farm relief package — a vote that could have had sharp negative fallout with midterm elections looming in November.

So. Much. Winning.