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US-STOCKS-MARKETS
China trade tensions, growth worries sink Wall Street again
NEW YORK, May 30, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Wall Street suffered another painful
session on Wednesday, as trade brinkmanship with China and fears for the US
economy were compounded by worries President Donald Trump could be impeached.
Weakness in the 10-year Treasury note, a sign investors fear growth is
slackening, also persisted, with yields falling to a new 20-month low during
the day.
After paring some losses, the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average
closed the session down 0.9 percent at 25,126.41, its lowest level in almost
four months.
The broader S&P 500 slid 0.7 percent to 2,783.02, leaving it a hair’s
breadth above its 200-day moving average, considered an important threshold
by analysts.
Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.8 percent to end the day at
7,547.31.
All three indexes are headed for their first monthly losses of 2019.
Stocks dropped early in the session and suffered further losses after
Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivered public remarks, saying that after a
two-year investigation “if we had confidence that the President clearly did
not commit a crime, we would have said that.”
And though he could not exonerate Trump of criminal wrongdoing, any
reckoning was meant for a process “other than the criminal justice system”
since the Justice Department maintains a sitting president cannot be indicted
of a crime.
Even before those comments, Chinese state media printed threats to curtail
exports of rare earths to the United States, and comments critical of the
Trump administration, the latest sign that Beijing and Washington are growing
further from resolving their trade war.
Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities, told AFP that
Mueller’s remarks and signals from Beijing were exacerbating investors’
worries.
While Mueller “certainly is a catalyst,” Hogan said, it was “nearly
impossible” to model how much of a hit impeachment would mean for the stocks.
“But it’s certainly assumed there would be some disruption in markets”
Among individual companies, drug maker Johnson & Johnson fell 4.2 percent on
the second day of an Oklahoma trial in which the company stands accused
responsibility in the opioid crisis.
BSS/AFP/HR/1125