US stocks were sharply lower Friday as investors digested souring consumer sentiment and inflation data that showed an uptick in one of the Federal Reserve’s key gauges, underscoring the delicate state of the economy as businesses brace for President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The Dow tumbled 750 points, or 1.77%, on Friday. The broader S&P 500 fell 2.1% and the Nasdaq Composite slid 2.8%.

. . .

Wall Street was also grappling with Trump’s announcement on Wednesday of 25% tariffs on all cars shipped into the US, set to go into effect April 3. Trump also announced tariffs on car parts like engines and transmissions, set to take effect “no later than May 3,” according to the proclamation he signed.

MBFC
Archive

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
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      15 days ago

      Billionaires and corporations are absolutely winning, in the foreseeable future.

        • q5VtXnYt@infosec.pub
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          14 days ago

          If you bet on falling stock prices you can still get richer. Especially if you do not give a fuck about what companies you bet on. Or workers. Or society.

  • Asetru@feddit.org
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    15 days ago

    We also believe the dynamic macro environment has contributed to a more cautious consumer

    Am I getting this right? Is this double speak for “the government is fucking up so badly, people try to save some wealth for the inevitable fall of society”?

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      Looks like I made the right choice pulling most of my 401k out of stock/blended funds and into stable bonds.

      You’ve made HALF the right choice. You “sold high”, which is great!

      However, the harder part is knowing when to go back in for the “buy low” part. If you’re out of the market when that recovery occurs you’ll be missing out on those gains. I’ve look at historical recoveries and can tell there is no way I’ll know when that time is. I will guess wrong every time.

      I hope you’re better at it than I am.

      • Sc00ter@lemm.ee
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        14 days ago

        Most people arent playing the market daily. Especially in something like a 401k. You dont need to time the bottom. We’re already in a correction, and its still going. You can wait until the market recovers, and as long as you buy back at a price lower than what you sold, call it a win.

        Dont chase, “what could have been” because youll always feel like you lost

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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          14 days ago

          You can wait until the market recovers, and as long as you buy back at a price lower than what you sold, call it a win.

          Right, thats the magic, but its not that easy. No one knows when that will occur.

          You have to accurately predict both a high enough point to profit, but also, and much harder, put the money back in when you decide its “low enough”. Look at historical recoveries. You said it yourself, most people aren’t playing the market daily. The folks that are pulling out may miss the recovery by weeks or more because they’re not watching. I know I don’t watch that closely, but I also don’t try to time the market.

          Dont chase, “what could have been” because youll always feel like you lost

          Isn’t that what trying to time the market is doing? The folks that are pulling out to put in later are attempting to time the market.

          I’m arguing the opposite. “Time in the market beats timing the market.”

          • Sc00ter@lemm.ee
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            14 days ago

            We have a lot of the same points, but what im trying to drive home is that, “buy low, sell high,” doesnt mean, “buy the lowest, sell the peak.” Markets in correction right now, its generally trending down. Potentially will turn bear market. You dont need to follow daily to know that. Now is as good a time to sell as last week, or the peak. You didnt miss it.

            When it goes down more, you dont need to see the bottom. You can wait until it hits recovery or bull market even, and buy back. That point will likely be lower than where you sold even if its not the lowest. You dont need to buy the bottom, but buying lower than you sold is a win.

            • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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              14 days ago

              When it goes down more, you dont need to see the bottom.

              So when are you recommending buying back in with your strategy? 1 point lower than you sold for? 10? 100? 1000?

              You can wait until it hits recovery or bull market even, and buy back. That point will likely be lower than where you sold even if its not the lowest. You dont need to buy the bottom, but buying lower than you sold is a win.

              Unless you miss that point, and you have to buy back in higher than you sold for, and it could be years before its ever low enough for you to “buy back in low than you sold”.

              If you buy back in when its higher than your arbitrary threshold, but then drops back down again the next day, do you sell again?

              • eran_morad@lemmy.world
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                14 days ago

                I went almost 100% cash recently. I’m waiting for another 10% decline in the sp500. Then reassessing. Probably start buying back gradually.

                Never thought I’d time the market with this much of my money. In ‘07, I didn’t sell. I shoveled as much as I could into that furnace. This time truly is different, though. The prez works for a foreign adversary.

                • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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                  14 days ago

                  I wish you luck. This is the fourth huge stock selloff in my lifetime, and for none of them did I accurately predict the recovery.

              • Sc00ter@lemm.ee
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                14 days ago

                when we hit recovery or bull market

                Those are technical terms. Thats when i recommend buying back in.

                • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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                  14 days ago

                  Those are only defined for a time period historically. When those time periods have those names, you’re at the point I’m talking about where you may have missed the entry point to buy in cheaply. Nobody says, with any faith or knowledge, “this is it! this is the recovery starting right now!”.

      • alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        15 days ago

        Timing the exact top and bottom is impossible, but you can always sell at an all-time high and buy at a 52 week low.

        Personally, I find it more effective for myself if I frame it in terms of “owning the most shares” instead of “making the most dollars”.

        If I started with 100 shares and now have 200 shares, I consider that a win, even if the 200 shares together are worth less than the 100 shares were at one time.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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          15 days ago

          Timing the exact top and bottom is impossible, but you can always sell at an all-time high

          An all-time high? So on point over the prior record and you sell?

          and buy at a 52 week low.

          I’m not understanding your strategy here. What are you accomplishing by putting your money back into the market at the dollar figure equal to the lowest value in the last year (52 weeks)? Especially if you sold at one point over the prior record (the all time high) you could be out of the market for years while stocks are on a rapid increase. The last 2 years of the S&P500 were both north of 23% returns back to back. Using your method you would have sold sometime in 2022 losing all those HUGE gains.

          What if the recover occurs prior to stocks ever hitting the 52 week low? You’d still be out of the market and will have missed the recovery.

          Personally, I find it more effective for myself if I frame it in terms of “owning the most shares” instead of “making the most dollars”.

          If I started with 100 shares and now have 200 shares, I consider that a win, even if the 200 shares together are worth less than the 100 shares were at one time.

          This confuses me even more. Number of shares is completely irrelevant. Stock splits double shares (and half values), a reverse stock split would double value (but half number of shares). I mean, if you’re just interested in number of shares, you do you, but most people use stocks as an investment vehicle where the value of those stocks is primary value (voting rights being a second value but most people don’t care about that).

          • alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            14 days ago

            If you can’t even understand that I am obviously not including things like stock splits, then I don’t think my comment was intended for you.

            • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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              14 days ago

              If you’re holding the opinion that simply the number of shares of something is more important that the total value of dollars those shares represent, I’m not sure who your audience is for your comment to be intended for.

              • alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                14 days ago

                My audience is people who are literate. You’re just reading stuff into my comments that a reasonable person wouldn’t.

                And that’s fine, you do your investment strategy. I’m happy with mine.

                • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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                  14 days ago

                  Go back and read our exchange. You wrote your position. I communicated my confusion with what I read of your position. You’ve done nothing to explain further what is wrong with how I explained how I understood your position except to say essentially “not that way”. You have yet to provide any more information for me to understand what your way actually is.

                  I’m not upset with you or your position, I’m genuinely confused. I’m happy to be corrected with my understanding of your position, but you’ve offered none. How else am I supposed to understand you? Just guess more and have you tell me “not that way” more? If you don’t want to talk about it more, thats fine too. I hope you have a great day.

      • CaptDust@sh.itjust.works
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        15 days ago

        The right time to go back in is whenever this admin is done, there is no “low” when the floor keeps falling out.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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          15 days ago

          That sounds like a rational answer. Stock markets are not rational. Also, who’s to say the next admin isn’t just a carbon copy of this one?

      • Pasta Dental@sh.itjust.works
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        15 days ago

        You can never time the lowest point. What you can do however is guarantee yourself a massive gain over the next few years when the stocks inevitably go back to pre-trump levels by buying it now, which is already much lower than it was 2 months ago

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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          14 days ago

          You can never time the lowest point.

          You’re cheating this exercise. We were talking about properly guessing when to buy back into the market, and you’ve predicated your solution with this:

          What you can do however is guarantee yourself a massive gain over the next few years when the stocks inevitably go back to pre-trump levels by buying it now

          This presupposes you’ve already sold to a cash position prior to the fall. So that would be accurately timing the market at the best time to sell off. If you sold even a month ago, you would have already incurred a loss from the highest peak value. You’re arguing against the parent post about selling off all stocks to a cash/bond position today. You’re both depending on a close-to-perfect timing of the market. He’s depending on buying in at the low, you’re depended on knowing when the high was to sell.

          Also, I think its sound thinking to always be suspicious of anyone’s claim saying “What you can do however is guarantee yourself a massive gain” when talking about investments. There is no such thing as a guarantee in investing.

    • pleasegoaway@lemm.ee
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      14 days ago

      The trump regime was designed to TANK the US economy so that stocks, businesses, and industries can be bought by billionaires at rock bottom prices.

      All is going according to plan.

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        I have an acquaintance that works for an old money, very wealthy family from oil money. The kind that influences regional as well as national politics. He worked for them during the last major recession in the late ‘00s. He basically said that his employer and all their buddies were running all over the world buying everything they could “like it is a fire sale” during the recession.

        So yeah. This is how we get more billionaires, more oligarchs, and more meta national corpo monopolies where one company controls multiple brand names.

        • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          The best we can do is to quit as soon as your company gets purchased. What they are after is the people. Specially the key role people.

          Don’t document your process. Fix things without opening change requests. That way if you assemble things the quality will drop when you leave.

          If you’re in a key role, just quit. Don’t go fucking around by deleting data. It’s better to make up data instead that seems real but is not. Never write an email that is personal or has anger in it because, even if you don’t send it, it gets saved. Same for your teams messages. You want to stay in the industry, but just quit if your company gets taken over by a billionaire.

      • 10001110101@lemm.ee
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        14 days ago

        Yeah, almost seems like it. I am convinced they are at least doing something like the “Mar-a-Lago Accord” to devalue the dollar, unseat the USD as the global reserve currency, inflate debt away, and make wages low enough and people desperate enough so more manufacturing is viable in the US again.

  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    I find it deeply funny that fascism is completely compatible with capitalism (it’s arguably its end-state), but they’re still tanking the economy because Trump doesn’t understand tariffs.

    • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      Fascism ultimately tanks any system because it prices loyalty above all else and you inevitably end up without any compitent people in charge.

      • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        Yeah, for sure, fascist regimes have a pretty short shelf-life in general because of cronyism and incompetence. I’m just saying there’s nothing inherent to fascism that should be tanking the economy right now in the way, say, a communist revolution would by causing capital flight. If he wasn’t pushing the worst, most unnecessary trade war in history, Trump could have a strong economy right now.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    14 days ago

    I told my partner that we needed to stop excessive spending like going out to eat while the economy is so uncertain. She was ok with that. I’m not feeling great about our (collective) future. Sigh.

  • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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    14 days ago

    Honestly, kinda surprised it is only dropping this much. Would have though the collapse of the free world as we know it to have more of an impact.

  • KulunkelBoom@lemm.ee
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    14 days ago

    Thanks trump. (if he can take credit for Biden’s economy then he can take credit for his ineptitude too)

    • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      13 days ago

      If he can take credit for the past admin, he can take credit for his failures.

      He won’t, Trump can do no wrong according to himself and his cult followers. Anything good is all him, anything bad is a nebulous thing he had no part of.

  • Sixty@sh.itjust.works
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    14 days ago

    It’s hard to lie about stock prices, let’s watch them continue to shout their propaganda as the riots start.

    • Blum0108@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago
      1. They inherited Biden’s economy

      2. trump can’t affect anything so soon

      3. It would be worse under Kamala

      4. We’ll just have to suffer a little pain while trump fixes things

      Take your pick of weak excuse

      • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        At this point the people that still like trump would happily live in a cardboard box as long as people they didn’t like were denied a cardboard box

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      14 days ago

      There has been a lot of “lying” about stock princes over the last decade but quite indirectly so: for example the ultra low interest rates have allowed many companies to get loans merely to buy their own stocks, which pushes stock prices up whilst loading the company with more debt (and bad debt rather than good debt: not having been taken for investing in productive and marketing activities of the company, those loans will not lead to the increase in profitability needed to pay the debt back plus interest).

      Similarly, because the wealth has been concentrating in fewer and fewer hands there has been a lot more money floating around looking for investments (every extra dollar in the hands of a poor or working class person is one extra dollar that goes into consumption, every extra dollar in the hands of a rich person is one extra dollar that’s looking for investment), which has pumped up bubbles from realestate to crypto, and that includes stocks.

      It’s not “lying” in the sense that one person moved the markets by telling porkies, it’s more of a mix of economic manipulation and an emergent system (in the Mathematical sense) transforming the actions of the various agents under these manipulated financial conditions into a big picture of stocks (and other “investment” class assets) going up in price even though no real increase in their underlying value has happened (the companies aren’t really profiting so much more that it justifies their market cap increases, the houses whose prices are going up have no actual improvements to justify the higher prices - the value going up is basically justified by the value going up).

    • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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      15 days ago

      Inflation was part of it, also the Russian incursion into Ukraine was sparking fears of ww3.

      The actions of this admin are reigniting those fears and we’re witnessing similar results in the market.

    • DrunkEngineer@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      2022 4th quarter was the big drop, 2023 was small decline. The reason was higher than expected inflation, with expectation of interest rate hikes by the Fed.