Author: Aimee Picchi / Source: CBS News
Stocks ended the year in the red, a downturn not seen since the height of the financial crisis a decade ago. The market gyrations have left investors both poorer and apprehensive about what’s to come, with some analysts questioning whether 2019 could usher in a “bear” market or even another recession.
The year concluded in an almost polar-opposite mood to the frothy optimism of early 2018, when President Donald Trump’s tax cut was projected to boost consumer spending, supercharge corporate profits and burnish investor portfolios. When the Dow jumped 5 percent in January, Mr. Trump touted his policies’ impact on the market and broader U.S. economy.
The Stock Market has been creating tremendous benefits for our country in the form of not only Record Setting Stock Prices, but present and future Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Seven TRILLION dollars of value created since our big election win!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
A year later, how things have changed. The Dow ended 2018 with a loss of 5.6 percent. The S&P 500 shed 6.2 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq declined 3.9 percent.
The market sell-off started in October amid heightened fears about Mr. Trump’s trade war with China and the Federal Reserve moving to gradually raise interest rates to keep the economy from overheating.
The latter led to a series of blistering attacks by the president on Fed chairman Jerome Powell, whom Mr. Trump accused of roiling markets.On top of those worries, investors are also fretting about a slowdown in U.S. and global growth, America’s ongoing government shutdown and even the risk of a possible recession.
“These issues have given market participants too much uncertainty to shrug off,” John Lynch, chief investment strategist at LPL Financial, wrote in a research note.
It’s no wonder investors fear they’re witnessing the end of a decade of economic growth and soaring market gains, according to a separate LPL Research analysis. “Threatening issues such as trade, monetary policy or global politics” could result in continued volatility, the financial firm cautioned.
Here’s how 2018 stacks up, and what experts predict for the market in 2019.
$15 trillion in lost weath
The global equity markets had shed $15 trillion between a peak on Jan. 28 and early December, according to a calculation from Bloomberg. Stocks across the globe suffered amid concerns about economic growth and trade tensions between the world’s economic superpowers, the U.S. and China. Among the biggest losers are tech companies like Apple, where concerns about the trade war with China and slowing consumer spending are weighing…
The post Stocks end the year down, suffering worst decline since 2008 appeared first on FeedBox.