4h ago

US stock market loses $5 trillion in value as Trump plows ahead on tariffs

www.straitstimes.com US stock market loses $5 trillion in value as Trump plows ahead on tariffs

The S&P 500 closed down 8.6% from its Feb 19 record high, shedding over $5 trillion in market value since then. Read more at straitstimes.com.

NEW YORK - President Donald Trump’s tariffs have spooked investors, with fears of an economic downturn driving a stock market sell-off that has wiped out US$4 trillion (S$5.3 trillion) from the S&P 500’s peak last month, when Wall Street was cheering much of Mr Trump’s agenda.

31 comments

Tarif go in to effect then he pulls out. Then back in. Dammed. I fell lile this a bad sex joke.

Good thing I sold off my entire 401k last month 30 years early in anticipation of the market taking a massive dump

1 - Gloating
2 - Hubris
3 - Denial <-------We're somewhere about here, depending on the individual's MAGA level
4 - Doubt
5 - Leopards ate my face

The fact that spooking the market could wipe out such an absurd amount of money, larger than many GDPs - and the economy hasn't even crashed completely at all yet - should provide a good reference for how much of billionaire wealth is actually just abstract numbers representing nothing tangible but raw power over people and processes.
- At some level of wealth, money stops being conceptually a medium of exchange for goods and services, and just becomes a scoreboard for bragging rights.
- I’m struggling a little to understand the main aim of this comment. It’s not untrue, there’re just a lot of parts going in different directions and, potentially, coming from different places. Without context it’s kinda just a surface observation, ya know?
  
  i think the commenter is just baffled at how drastically overvalued (over hyped) so many stocks are - a well known problem where speculative over investment can and does distort the whole economy and has power over the whole population. see for example, speculation bubbles like the dotcom overvaluation or subprime mortgages, or Theranos, or Bitcoin, or even how Tesla stock was being traded higher than the next 6-8 major car companies combined.
  in other words, stock prices are a bunch of bullshit.
  stocks arent exactly the same as "money" in the common sense so it confuses people when headlines say money was lost or wiped out. but stocks are similar to money in that they are placeholders for value, however much more susceptible to wild devaluations. because ultimately they're just speculative bets on what something is worth and can fluctuate rapidly, as rapidly and suddenly as human emotions.

Billionaires call this a fire sale. They get richer.
- Not yet. Still a ways to go before proverbial (and maybe literal) blood in the streets.
- We can only hope that they're currently heavily leveraged with loans on equity holdings, such that they have to liquidate assets.
  
  Nothing will stop them from gathering up all the low price shares.

The guy who bankrupted a casino is tanking the biggest economy in the world. Who knew!
- The american stock market is the ultimate casino boss fight for him.
- bankrupted a casino
  That’s false. He bankrupted multiple casinos.
  
  Thats false. He’s bankrupted multiple casinos and hotels.
- The guy who bankrupted a casino is tanking the biggest casino in the world. Who knew!

They say there is no crystal ball in investment, but it's hard to not have predicted this outcome.

How close are we to global market crashes and bank runs?
- once the FDIC is gutted, we're on our own with the banks.
  
  Hmm. I need a plan for after they kill FDIC.

In the words of the great man himself, “have fun!”

Hello easyspeezy here, today we got quite a special order, we are doing a bankruptcy speedrun!

Like the castle in its corner
\ In a medieval game
\ I foresee terrible trouble
\ And I stay here just the same...

There go my investments….
- Buy the dip 😊
  
  This isn't the dip you want. There's several more coming.

31 comments