Did Trump Tank Stocks to Force Rate Cut? – Ep. 465

See Peter at the SALT Conference at the Bellagio, Las Vegas May 7-10, 2019
https://www.salt.org/bio-schiff-peter
Market Volatility
I just arrived in Las Vegas, where I will be spending the next 8 days - I actually have 2 conferences heres; I have the SALT Conference (SkyBridge Alternative Asset Conference) that really kicks off tomorrow, though there is a welcome reception tonight, and then I do the Las Vegas Money Show, which kicks off on Monday. So I'm here for quite some time. I haven't even unpacked my bags, though. I wanted to record a short podcast to comment mainly on the market volatility.
Buyers Bought Dip on Monday
The stock market was way down on Monday morning. Of course, the selloff started in the futures market on Sunday night, where the Dow futures was down over 500 points at one time. But by the time we opened, the Dow was only off about 450 and the dip buyers came in, and they bought the market all day, and we closed near the highs. It couldn't close positive - I think the Dow was only off about 70 points. So the buyers came in as they are trained to do. They bought the dip.
Trump's Tariff Tweets
What caused the initial selloff was a pair of tweets; the two tweets were related. A lot of times, when Donald Trump sends out a tweet, he has a lot of stuff in there. or he will send out 2 tweets to make the same message. And, what happened is he basically said that he was going to impose more tariffs on China. He tweeted that, by this Friday, he is going to "up" the 10% tariffs to 25%. So Americans who are now being taxed 10% for buying some Chinese goods, if they buy those Chinese goods starting on Friday, they will have to pay a 25% tariff on those goods.
New Additional 25% Tariffs
He also tweeted that he was going to apply the 25% tariff to goods that right now aren't paying any tariffs. So there are still a lot of Chinese goods that Americans could buy without being subject to tariffs, but now Trump is saying that now that is going to go away. At the end of this week, he's going to hit those goods. So Americans buying pretty much any Chinese products are going to have to pay a 25% tariff.
Additional Tax on American Consumers
Now, of course, Donald Trump thinks these tariffs are great, because he believes the Chinese pay them, which, of course, is not true. The tariffs are added on here in the United States, so it is the American consumers who pay those tariffs. Now, it can hurt China because if the higher prices cause fewer Americans to buy Chinese goods because they don't want to pay the higher price, then China doesn't sell its goods in America.

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