I have been waiting and preparing it for a while if you have not seen stocks fell sharply today after reports showed that worries among consumers and businesses about President Donald Trump’s policies may be hitting the U.S. economy. Good timing for me as I had a large position of puts that were about to expire worthless, but ended the day up 200-1000%!
The S&P 500 sank 1.7% for its worst day in two months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 748 points, or 1.7%, and the Nasdaq composite tumbled 2.2%.
There were several weaker-than-expected reports on the economy that have been putting pressure on markets, but institutions have held up markets until this point. One such report suggested U.S. business activity is close to stalling, with growth slowing to a 17-month low. The preliminary report from S&P Global said activity unexpectedly shrank for U.S. services businesses, and many in the survey reported slumping optimism because of worries about Trump's plans for the economy.
Things look bleak, with the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index falling to 64.7 in February, a decline of nearly 10% and a steeper drop than expected as consumers raised concerns about higher inflation ahead from possible new tariffs. The five-year inflation outlook in the survey was 3.5%, the highest since 1995. On top of that, existing home sales in the U.S. fell more than expected last month to 4.08 million units. I don't know about you, but things have seemed bad for a little while. In my opinion markets have been irrational and detached from the actual economy maybe this is correction I felt was coming. We will have to see what happens...
How is everyone feeling or what are your thoughts on where markets are heading?