23Mar2018 Market Close: Stocks Continue Steep Selloff While Gold And Oil Surge On Dollar Decline. Trade War Fears Dominate Markets

Written by Gary

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 424.69 points to close at 23,533.20, its lowest level since November, on continued trade war fears. Oil surged another 2.5%, ith WTI crude closing at $65.88 and Brent over $70 ($70.440.Treasuries continued to rally with the 10-year yield down to 2.835% on the biggest daily decline in 6 months. The Dollar Index declined 0.5% to 89.43, near a one-month low, while gold surged 1.4% to $1,346.90.

Todays S&P 500 Chart

The Market in Perspective

Here are the headlines moving the markets.
	Dropbox shares close up 35 percent in biggest tech debut since Snap (Reuters) – Dropbox Inc’s shares closed at $28.42, up more than 35 percent in their first day of trading on Friday, as investors rushed to buy into the biggest technology initial public offering in more than a year even as the wider sector languished.
	Wall Street nosedives on trade-war worries NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street tumbled on Friday as investors, increasingly nervous about a potential U.S. trade war with China, shied away from risky bets going into the weekend as they looked for shelter from further declines.
	China urges U.S. away from ‘brink’ as Trump picks trade weapons BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China urged the United States on Friday to “pull back from the brink” as President Donald Trump’s plans for tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese goods moved the world’s two largest economies closer to a trade war.
	GSK pulls out of $20 billion race for Pfizer consumer assets LONDON (Reuters) – GlaxoSmithKline has quit the race to buy Pfizer’s consumer healthcare business, endangering an auction the U.S. drugmaker hoped would bring in as much as $20 billion.
	U.S. lawmakers formally ask Facebook CEO to testify on user data WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers on Friday formally asked Facebook Inc’s Mark Zuckerberg to explain at a congressional hearing how 50 million users’ data got into the hands of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
	Qualcomm re-elects board of directors with tepid support SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – Qualcomm Inc re-elected its board of directors on Friday with weak support from shareholders, who grilled the U.S. chipmaker over its strategy following its successful defense against a $117-billion hostile bid from Broadcom Ltd .
	Bank of America pays $42 million fine in New York ‘masking’ probe NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bank of America Corp will pay a $42 million fine and admitted wrongdoing to settle claims by New York’s attorney general that it fraudulently routed clients’ stock trades to outside firms, including one run by swindler Bernard Madoff.
	Spotify says about two million users blocked ads without paying (Reuters) – Spotify Technology SA said on Friday it uncovered 2 million users of its free service who had blocked advertising without paying, highlighting a potential revenue risk for the soon-to-be public company.
	Canada calls end to trade case positive for ‘longstanding’ Boeing ties MONTREAL, OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada on Friday welcomed as a “positive development” in its long ties with Boeing a decision by the U.S. planemaker to end a trade dispute over sales of Bombardier CSeries jets in the United States.
	Wall Street Journal Admits “China Started The Trade War, Not Trump” If there’s a trade war between the U.S. and China, don’t blame Donald Trump, says The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip: China started it long before he became president. While definitely not toeing the line of the mainstream media’s ubiquitous ‘Trump is an idiot’ narrative, Ip explains below that, if they’re honest with themselves, even free traders and internationalists agree China’s predatory trade practices – which include forcing U.S. business to transfer valuable technology to Chinese firms and restricting access to Chinese markets – are undermining both its partners and the trading system. Mr. Trump’s China crackdown is risky, but it’s on firmer legal, political and economic ground than many of his other trade complaints, for several reasons. 1. These products are different: The classic case for free trade predicts that each country spe …
	UK Data Regulator To Raid Cambridge Analytica Offices Following the suspension of Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix for being caught on video offering to entrap politicians with bribes and sex workers and boasting about the company’s role in President Trump’s upset electoral triumph, Britain’s top data authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office, has obtained a warrant to raid the firm’s London offices and seize its servers, according to Sky News. The Information Commissioner’s Office has been granted a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica’s office, following claims they misused millions of people’s online data pic.twitter.com/vEzI901LV3 — Sky News (@SkyNews) March 23, 2018 Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said on Monday that she’d be seeking the warrant following reports that the
	Carnage… Everywhere “It’ll be fine” they said… “You buy the dip” they said…”just follow my tracks”… Post-Powell, Gold is the big winner… Only Nasdaq remains in the green for the year, as Small Caps joined the rest in the red this week… But it was an ugly week for global markets. Equities be li …
	Friday Humor: Entire Facebook Staff Laughs As Man Tightens Privacy Settings PALO ALTO, CA All 1,472 employees of Facebook, Inc. reportedly burst out in uncontrollable laughter Wednesday following Albuquerque resident Jason Herrick’s attempts to protect his personal information from exploitation on the social-networking site. “Look, he’s clicking ‘Friends Only’ for his e-mail address. Like that’s going to make a difference!” howled infrastructure manager Evan Hollingsworth, tears streaming down his face, to several of his doubled-over coworkers. “Oh, sure, by all means, Jason, ‘delete’ that photo. Man, this is so rich.” According to internal sources, the entire staff of Facebook was left gasping for air minutes later when the “hilarious” Herrick believed he had actually blocked third-party ads. Source: The Onion
	Can Markets Handle So Much Trouble at Once? Trouble comes in threes. In isolation, the headwinds facing global markets could be manageable. Taken together, they spell continued turbulence.
	What Boeing Has to Lose in a U.S.-China Trade War Boeing has become an unofficial proxy for fears about an escalating U.S.-China trade war. Investors are right to be worried.
	Viacom’s Hidden Charms May Tempt CBS As CBS weighs making an offer, it may discover more value than it did last time round.
	16 March 2018: ECRI’s WLI Growth Index Rate Insignificantly Slows ECRI’s WLI Growth Index which forecasts economic growth six months forward remains in expansion. ECRI also released their coincident index this week.
	February 2018 Headline New Home Sales Continue to Slow Written by John Lounsbury and Steven Hansen The headlines say new home sales declined. Our analysis also shows even more deceleration of new home sales. Sales prices were similar to last month.
	Market Extra: Stop saying the Dow is moving in and out of correction! That is not how stock-market moves work Market technicians generally define a correction as a 10% decline from a recent peak in an asset. But once that security slips in to correction phase, that trend is viewed as in force until it trades above its previous peak.
	Bond Report: 2-year Treasury yield posts largest weekly drop in more than a month Treasury yields on Friday are little changed in Friday trade, but were mostly lower for the week, as a swoon for global stocks appeared to intensify on worries about escalating trade tensions between China and the U.S.
	AbbVie’s latest trial data was probably worse than it looked The company only included a percentage of patients in the trial in a Thursday data release.