NEW YORK - President Donald Trump’s tariffs have spooked investors, with fears of an economic downturn driving a stock market sell-off that has wiped out US$4 trillion (S$5.3 trillion) from the S&P 500’s peak last month, when Wall Street was cheering much of Mr Trump’s agenda.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 hours ago

      Sort of but not really.

      They aren’t really “the US economy”. Most of those corporations live outside the bounds of nations. They just have their HQ in the US. Manufacturing etc is done wherever is cheapest, and now they’re finding out that they might have to pay real wages and real money to make things in the US.

      The losses per person are lower because people from all over the world have investments in those stocks. It’s been overvalued for a while and still is.

      Americans will still end up poorer though, because even if they move the manufacturing, they’ll no longer be able to buy things at Chinese poverty wages.

  • orcrist@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    9 hours ago

    Holy s***. If you have money in that Jones Trading company, you’re getting played, my friend. They would allow themselves to be quoted saying that no one expected that things might not go smoothly? It’s their job to plan for such things. The rest of us all expected things to go downhill, so what the heck were they doing?

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    38
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    15 hours ago

    I’m sure a significant chunk is middle class retirement savings. (Sources are not definitive, but over 40% of the value in the stock market is 401k and other retirement savings).

    Gonna F the job market again, too; as people who would retire won’t because their nest egg dried up.

  • AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    104
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    18 hours ago

    The fact that spooking the market could wipe out such an absurd amount of money, larger than many GDPs - and the economy hasn’t even crashed completely at all yet - should provide a good reference for how much of billionaire wealth is actually just abstract numbers representing nothing tangible but raw power over people and processes.

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      31
      ·
      17 hours ago

      At some level of wealth, money stops being conceptually a medium of exchange for goods and services, and just becomes a scoreboard for bragging rights.

      • AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        5 hours ago

        More or less, although it’s important, that it still very much is a medium of power, as its role as financial capital and/or in national budgets ultimately decides which projects and actions are allowed to exist and go through and which aren’t

    • Soup@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      18 hours ago

      I’m struggling a little to understand the main aim of this comment. It’s not untrue, there’re just a lot of parts going in different directions and, potentially, coming from different places. Without context it’s kinda just a surface observation, ya know?

      • Basically, it was just that surface level observation. But in our intuitive minds, we sometimes forget, that money there doesn’t behave a medium of exchange like how we use it as common proles. In politics and finance, it’s a means of power and decisions, instead.

      • stopdropandprole@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        20
        ·
        edit-2
        17 hours ago

        i think the commenter is just baffled at how drastically overvalued (over hyped) so many stocks are - a well known problem where speculative over investment can and does distort the whole economy and has power over the whole population. see for example, speculation bubbles like the dotcom overvaluation or subprime mortgages, or Theranos, or Bitcoin, or even how Tesla stock was being traded higher than the next 6-8 major car companies combined.

        in other words, stock prices are a bunch of bullshit.

        stocks arent exactly the same as “money” in the common sense so it confuses people when headlines say money was lost or wiped out. but stocks are similar to money in that they are placeholders for value, however much more susceptible to wild devaluations. because ultimately they’re just speculative bets on what something is worth and can fluctuate rapidly, as rapidly and suddenly as human emotions.

      • orcrist@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        9 hours ago

        But you have context. You’re looking at a situation where we see massive changes in the stock market but because the stock market is almost entirely owned by incredibly rich people, you don’t see so many lives being destroyed just yet. So every time you hear someone talk about the stock market, keep in mind that they are probably talking about rich people’s potential future yachts, and not anything actually happening to the ordinary person right now.

        • Soup@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          4 hours ago

          That much I know, and unfortunately the original comment could have pulled from many places. Mostly I was just trying to make sure they weren’t one of those “rich people aren’t actually rich” or “rich people take risks!” people.

  • Redditsux@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    142
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    20 hours ago

    The guy who bankrupted a casino is tanking the biggest economy in the world. Who knew!

  • Gsus4@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    58
    ·
    edit-2
    18 hours ago

    1 - Gloating

    2 - Hubris

    3 - Denial <-------We’re somewhere about here, depending on the individual’s MAGA level

    4 - Doubt

    5 - Leopards ate my face

  • LonstedBrowryBased@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    16 hours ago

    Good thing I sold off my entire 401k last month 30 years early in anticipation of the market taking a massive dump

    • ᴍᴜᴛɪʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴᴡᴀᴠᴇ @lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      edit-2
      12 hours ago

      Good job. For what it’s worth you should still take your employer match and invest it all outside North America. Don’t leave that free money on the table because the US is headed for a depression.

      I sold the stocks we had for a down payment on a house late last month too. I have avoided $9000 in losses SO FAR. I was talking about this a couple days ago and was essentially told I’m an idiot for trying to time the market instead of riding the dip. Then yesterday early morning before open I was told I got lucky and better buy back in to lock in my winnings. $5000 of those losses would have occurred yesterday if I’d bought back in. I’m not putting money back in the casino until it’s under new management.

      • LonstedBrowryBased@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        10 hours ago

        Glad you got it out! And glad you didn’t buy the dip before it dipped even harder. Definitely don’t think now is the time to be playing the stock market game unless you have extra money laying around to gamble with.

        • whyalone@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          5 hours ago

          This means that you have cash now? If so, isn’t it dangerous if hyperinflation comes into play? I am just curious, not trying to blame you for anything

          • LonstedBrowryBased@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            2 hours ago

            Whether it’s a crashing stock market or inflation both are going to cause your money to become worthless and both can be fixed with time but with crashing stock market if companies don’t rebound in the end and go out of business during the depression then your money is lost forever. At least with inflation there’s a chance it’ll resolve and you’ll have money again in the end.

      • 60d@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        10 hours ago

        Trump is bankrupting ANOTHER CASINO?!?

        Art of the Deal, go!

      • GaMEChld@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        12 hours ago

        I feel like it’s about time to shift money into gold securities or something tangible as our reputation based currency systems take a beating.

        • I thought about precious metal securities. I wonder if you can buy rare earth securities yet? I’m honestly thinking about getting the physical stuff and hiding it. Insane. I wouldn’t have believed I’d be thinking like this half a year ago.

          • GaMEChld@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            4 hours ago

            It’s all about what level of collapse are you trying to shield yourself from. Like if you’re talking worldwide mad max, no electronic claims to wealth will be honored, only physical substances, like actual gold, water, guns.

            But if it’s just a economic recession or depression and we aren’t seriously talking about countries going away… Yeah I’m thinking gold securities, lithium probably. The guy in The Big Short started started buying up water next, for what that’s worth.

  • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    18 hours ago

    They say there is no crystal ball in investment, but it’s hard to not have predicted this outcome.

  • Slayan@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    19 hours ago

    Hello easyspeezy here, today we got quite a special order, we are doing a bankruptcy speedrun!