Yahoo Finance by William Watts 8/23/2019
Fed’s Powell leaves door open to rate cut, but gets blasted by Trump as ‘enemy’
Stocks tumbled Friday as the U.S.-China trade war took a sharper turn, with President Donald Trump saying he’s ordering American companies to start looking for “an alternative to China,†while readying additional measures after Beijing imposed retaliatory tariffs on imports of U.S. goods.
Earlier, the major indexes flipped between modest gains and losses after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell left the door open for another interest rate cut in September in a widely anticipated speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
How are the major benchmarks faring?
Stocks extended declines ahead of the closing bell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -2.37% was down 599 points, or 2.3%, at 25,653, while the S&P 500 index SPX, -2.59% dropped 73 points to 2,850, a 2.5% decline. The Nasdaq Composite index COMP, -3.00% shed 229 points, or 2.9%, to 7,762.
What’s driving the market?
Ahead of Friday’s open, China announced new tariffs of 5% and 10% on $75 billion in U.S. imports, set to go into effect in two tranches, on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15, respectively. The tariffs will be imposed on agricultural products, crude oil, small aircraft and cars among other goods. The Chinese government said that the move was in response to the Trump administration’s plans to institute 10% tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese imports, also in two stages and on the same dates, announced earlier in August.
More:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stocks-set-to-head-slightly-higher-as-wall-street-awaits-powells-jackson-hole-speech-2019-08-23?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo