Trade This

Financial Review

…Trade wars backfire. Who pays? Retail sales up. Productivity up. Inventories up (a little). Homebuilder confidence slips. Financial Review by Sinclair Noe for 08-15-2018 DOW – 137 = 25,162 SPX – 21 = 2818 NAS – 96 = 7774 RUT – 21 = 1670 10 y – .04 = 2.85% OIL – 2.16 = 64.88 GOLD – 19.00 = 1175.70 Earlier, the Dow Industrial Average dropped under 25,000 – the Dow was down more than 300 points at session lows. The problem du jour is Turkey, which just keeps getting worse. And Turkey is just the tip of the iceberg; beneath the troubled waters, we can dip into the rest of the emerging markets; and beyond that we can look at the failed attempts to impose protectionist trade policies on our trade partners and allies. Turkey doubled tariffs on some U.S. imports, and China lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organization against American trade policies. New data provides tangible evidence that some elements of Trump’s trade wars are backfiring. Prices for agricultural exports fell 5.3% in July, the biggest drop since 2011. The price of soybeans fell 14.1%, accounting for most of the overall drop. There were also small declines in the price of corn, wheat, fruit and nut exports. Overall export prices fell 0.5%, the biggest drop in more than a year, with agriculture causing most of the decline. Beginning July 6, China imposed 25% tariffs on a variety of American agricultural products, including soybeans, corn, ...

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