The Dow Jones dove 2 percent, or some 470 points, on Thursday following US President Donald Trump’s threat to shut down the government over border wall funding. House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters Thursday morning that Trump wouldn’t be signing the temporary funding bill that passed the Senate late Wednesday.
The Dow slipped as far as 679 points during Thursday’s trading session. The Nasdaq, a market index tracking tech stocks, sank 1.6 percent on the day and officially entered bear market territory. The S&P 500 was also down about 1.6 percent.
The Dow is now down 10 percent in December alone, putting it on pace for its worst month in almost a decade.
The Federal Reserve, for its part, was not fazed by recent market movements this week. On Wednesday, the Fed announced it would be lifting the federal funds rate — which is a lever of sorts for manipulating interest rates across the American market — a quarter of a point from 2.25 percent to 2.50 percent. The Dow dropped to fresh 2018 lows following the Fed’s decision, Sputnik reported.
While the Fed doesn’t seem overly concerned about the economy, Bloomberg’s National Economic Confidence Survey has posted its largest two-month decline in half-a-decade, ZeroHedge reports.
Brent Crude Oil prices also dropped to $46.16 after falling 2.5 percent.
Meanwhile, crypto markets have rallied a bit, with Bitcoin jumping back up to $4,000, a 6.24 percent uptick in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.
Trump has vowed to lawmakers that he won’t sign into law a new budget unless Congress provisions funds for the border wall, even though questions loom about how well the government spent the $1.8 billion Congress previously appropriated for the “steel slats.”
“I am asking Congress to defend the border of our nation for a tiny fraction — a tiny fraction — of the cost” of America’s foreign wars, the president said during a Thursday afternoon news conference.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
