Stocks Extend Fall Despite Mnuchin Bid to Reassure Investors: Dow drops 2% or more for fifth time

Wall Street Journal ^ | December 24, 2018 | Avantika Chilkoti and Michael Wursthorn

[reaganaut1]

A bruising stock selloff continued, erasing more than 650 points from the Dow Jones Industrial Average as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin tried to instill calm into a jittery market.

Coming off the stock market’s worst week since the 2008 financial crisis, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell for a fourth straight session Monday as investors continued to weigh the impact of rising interest rates, slowing U.S. growth, and the ramifications of a government shutdown extending into January.

With the selloff showing little signs of slowing, Mr. Mnuchin attempted to reassure investors, saying he had spoken individually with the chief executives of six large banks to ensure they had sufficient lending capacity.

But Mr. Mnuchin’s public efforts to soothe investors may have had the opposite effect, analysts said, with banks stocks falling along with most other assets Monday.

“We’ve gone through situations before where it’s absolutely normal for the secretary of Treasury to reach out to the private sector,” said Quincy Krosby, a chief market strategist at Prudential Financial, who also served several stints in the government earlier in her career.

“But what’s bad is this made the papers, and says the government is very worried,” said Ms. Krosby, adding that with investors focused on so many issues, “it’s almost as if gravity is pulling this market toward a lower level before it bottoms out.”

Adding to the market’s unease were reports over the weekend that President Trump, angry over monetary policy, has considered removing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell—a move that would stir even greater volatility and raise questions around political inference at the central bank, analysts said.

White House advisers, including Mr. Mnuchin, sought to ease those concerns as well, saying the president doesn’t have the authority to remove Mr. Powell.

[Lib-Lickers 2]

told ya

[Moonman62]

Trump has the right to express his views on monetary policy, but his continued bashing of the Fed is undermining confidence. He said the Fed should “feel the market” but should do so himself.

...

Trump was right. The Fed causes recessions and economic losses in the trillions with their out of touch manipulation of the markets based on their fake claim that economic growth causes inflation.

And anybody who invested on this day has made a lot of money since then.