US stocks suffered heavy selloff towards the end of the session overnight, single handedly knocked down by Trump’s trade policy. DOW rebounded in early trading to as high as 25040.58 but closed down -0.99% or -245.39 pts at 24442.92. That’s the biggest U-turn in eight months. S&P 500 hit 2706.85 before closing down -0.66% at 2641.25. NASDAQ jumped to 7296.51 and close down -1.63% or -116.92 pts at 7050.29. The U-turn in NASDAQ was the worst in three years.
Selloff emerged as Bloomberg reported that Trump is going to impose additional tariffs on all Chinese imports, should the summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping fail. The two leaders plan to meet at sideline of G20 summit in Buenos Aires in November, but even this arrangement is not finalized yet. The announcement of the new tariffs could come in as early as December. The total amount of imports to be tariffs could add up to USD 257B, in addition to the USD 250B already covered by current tariffs.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined talked about the specifics of the Xi-Trump meeting. She just said “You have two of the most powerful leaders in the world. I think that’s consequential no matter how you look at it and we’ll see what happens when they sit down.”
In Asia, though, Chinese and Hong Kong stocks reversed early losses after Trump’s comment in an interview with Fox news. He said, “I think we will make a great deal with China, and it has to be great because they’ve drained our country.” At the time of writing, Hong Kong HSI is down -0.17% only, China Shanghai SSE is even up 0.72%.
Separately, according to Gallup polling during the week ended October 28, Trump’s job approval rating dropped steeply by 4% to 40%, sharpest decline since June 24, on the controversy over his policy of separating families apprehended illegally crossing the US-Mexico border. On the other hand, his disapproval rating rose to 54%.
