Richard Phillips is a New York-based international analyst. Since the 1980s, he has served as a senior advisor to major financial institutions around the world. Among his current responsibilities is the management of the Thomson Reuters Corporate Responsibility Ratings and Indexes, which measure 200 separate factors to assess the environmental, social and governance performance of over 5,000 companies worldwide. The following are excerpts from Richard Phillips' December 27, 2018 article headlined "American People to Trump: What’s Goin’ on in the Markets?" with the subheading "What makes this particular market correction so spooky is that, unlike in 2008, no single reason has yet been identified as causing the downturn." (Begin excerpts) ...As of December 25, 2018, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had been down on seven consecutive days. It was down 13 out of 18 trading days for the month of December through Christmas Day. But what makes this particular market correction so spooky is that, unlike in 2008, no single reason has yet been identified as causing the downturn.... It is worth noting that this is the worst December for the stock market since 1931, a year after the passage of the so-called Smoot-Hawley Act.... Nor is the crash confined to “big tech.” The biotech sector hasn’t done much better recently and popular biotech indexes are down on the order of 33% since late September, as government weighs in on drug pricing. Technology and biotechnology are supposed to represent America’s economic future. If recent performance is any indication, the future is looking rather bleak. Of great concern in terms of the tech crash is that the increasingly bleak outlook for stocks, which remains largely ethereal, will become hard fact at an inopportune time.... As this unfolds, confidence in all branches of the U.S. government, especially the Executive Branch, will continue to erode. With each passing day, the Trump Administration looks more and more like a misguided Amateur Hour — a reality game show where untalented hacks get to compete against the President for whose ideas are more stupid — call it “The Political Apprentice: Stupid Edition.”... Trump’s government shutdown is based on the curious idea to impose a 16th century solution – walls — on a problem that doesn’t really exist (mass immigration). This type of erratic — call it stupid — behavior undermines confidence on a scale not seen in U.S. politics since the end of World War II.... In the current market, we are deprived of such certain culpability. Today, one can only ask, “What’s Goin’ On?” (End excerpts) Source: https://www.theglobalist.com/us-stock-market-federal-reserve-economy/
