NATION/WORLD
Thursday, December 27, 2018
East Oregonian
A7
Wall Street notches best day in 10 years
By ALEX VEIGA
Associated Press
Stocks
rocketed
on
Wednesday in Wall Street’s
best day in 10 years, snap-
ping a stomach-churning,
four-day losing streak and
giving some post-Christmas
cheer to a market that has
been battered this December.
The Dow Jones Industrial
Average shot up more than
1,000 points — its biggest
single-day point gain ever
— rising nearly 5 percent
as investors returned from
a one-day Christmas break.
The broader S&P 500 index
also gained 5 percent, and
the technology-heavy Nas-
daq rose 5.8 percent.
But even with the rally,
the market remains on track
for its worst December since
1931, during the depths of
the Depression, and could
finish 2018 with its steepest
losses in a decade.
“The real question is: Do
we have follow-through for
the rest of this week?” said
Sam Stovall, chief invest-
ment strategist for CFRA.
Technology companies,
health care stocks and banks
drove much of the broad
rally. Retailers also were
AP Photo/Richard Drew
Trader Michael Milano works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
big gainers, after a holiday
shopping season marked by
robust spending. Amazon
had its biggest gain in more
than a year.
Energy
stocks
also
rebounded as the price of
U.S. crude oil posted its
biggest one-day increase in
more than two years.
But what really might
have pushed stocks over the
top was a signal from Wash-
ington that President Donald
Trump would not try to oust
the chairman of the Federal
Reserve.
In recent days, Trump’s
tweet attacks on the Fed
and chairman Jerome Pow-
ell for raising interest rates
stoked fears about the cen-
tral bank’s independence,
unnerving the market.
The partial government
shutdown that began over
the weekend also weighed
on the market, as did person-
nel turmoil inside the Trump
administration, trade ten-
sions with China, the slow-
ing global economy and
worries that corporate prof-
its are going to slip sooner
or later.
The Dow lost 1,883
points over the prior four
trading sessions and is still
down 2,660 for December.
Wednesday’s
gains
pulled the S&P 500 back
from the brink of what Wall
Street calls a bear market —
a 20 percent tumble from an
index’s peak. Another day
of heavy losses would have
marked the end of the lon-
gest bull market for stocks
in modern history — a run
of nearly 10 years.
The S&P is now down
15.8 percent since its all-
time high on Sept. 20.
All told, the S&P 500
rose 116.60 points Wednes-
day, or 5 percent, to
2,467.70. The Dow soared
1,086.25 points, or 5 per-
cent, to 22,878.45. The Nas-
daq gained 361.44 points, or
5.8 percent, to 6,554.36. The
Russell 2000 index of small-
er-company stocks picked
up 62.89 points, or 5 per-
cent, at 1,329.81.
Trading volume was
lighter than usual follow-
ing the holiday. Markets in
Europe, Australia and Hong
Kong were closed.
Among tech stocks,
Adobe rose 8.7 percent.
Credit card company Visa
climbed 7 percent, and Mas-
tercard was up 6.7 percent.
Among big retailers, Ama-
zon rose 9.4 percent, Kohl’s
10.3 percent and Nordstrom
5.8 percent.
Most economists expect
growth to slow in 2019,
though not by enough to
cause a full-blown reces-
sion. Unemployment is at
3.7 percent, the lowest since
1969. Inflation is tame. Pay
has picked up. Consumers
boosted their spending this
holiday season.
The market apparently
got a lift Wednesday when
Kevin Hassett, chairman of
the White House Council of
Economic Advisers, said in
an interview with The Wall
Street Journal that the Fed
chairman is in no danger of
being fired.
The president could help
restore some stability to
the market if he “gives his
thumbs a vacation,” Stovall
said. “Tweet things that are
more constructive in terms
of working out an agree-
ment with Democrats and
with China. And then just
remain silent as it relates to
the Fed.”
Trump in Iraq on first visit to troops in troubled region
By DARLENE
SUPERVILLE
Associated Press
AL-ASAD AIRBASE,
Iraq — President Don-
ald Trump made an unan-
nounced visit to Iraq on
Wednesday, leaving behind
a partially shuttered U.S.
government to greet Amer-
ican troops helping hold
off extremists in a country
where thousands of Ameri-
cans died during the recent
war.
It comes a week after
Trump stunned his national
security
advisers
by
announcing that he would
withdraw U.S. troops from
neighboring Syria where
they have been fighting
Islamic State militants.
Defense Secretary Jim Mat-
tis abruptly resigned fol-
lowing the announcement,
and Trump’s decision rat-
tled allies around the world,
including in Iraq.
Trump’s
trip
was
shrouded in secrecy. Air
Force One flew overnight
from Washington, land-
ing at an airbase west of
Baghdad under the cover of
darkness Wednesday eve-
ning. It is his first visit with
troops stationed in a trou-
bled region.
Fifteen years after the
2003 invasion, the U.S. still
has more than 5,000 troops
in Iraq supporting the gov-
ernment as it continues
the fight against remaining
pockets of resistance by the
Islamic State group. IS has
lost a significant amount of
territory in Iraq and Syria
but is still seen as a threat.
Trump, who speaks
often about his support for
the U.S. military, had faced
criticism for not yet visit-
ing U.S. troops stationed
in harm’s way as he comes
up on his two-year mark in
office. He told The Associ-
ated Press in an interview
in October that he “will
do that at some point, but I
don’t think it’s overly nec-
essary.” He later began to
signal that such a troop visit
was in the offing.
Trump had planned to
spend Christmas at his pri-
vate club in Florida, but
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stayed behind in Washing-
ton due to the shutdown.
It’s unclear whether his trip
to Iraq was added after it
became apparent that the
government would be shut
down indefinitely due to a
stalemate between Trump
and congressional Demo-
crats over the president’s
demand for a wall along the
U.S.-Mexico border.
Adding to the tumult,
the stock market has been
experiencing heavy losses
over concerns about a
slowing global economy,
Trump’s trade war with
China and the president’s
public slamming of the
Federal Reserve and its
chairman over interest rate
hikes by the independent
agency.
Trump’s visit comes at a
time when his Middle East
policy is in flux. He went
against the views of his
top national security advis-
ers in announcing the Syria
withdrawal, a decision that
risks creating a vacuum for
extremists to thrive.
There are dire impli-
cations in particular for
neighboring Iraq. The Iraqi
government now has con-
trol of all the country’s cit-
ies, towns and villages after
fighting its last urban bat-
tles against IS in December
2017. But its political, mili-
tary and economic situation
remains uncertain, and the
country continues to expe-
rience sporadic bombings,
kidnappings and assassina-
tions, which most people
attribute to IS.
Iraqi Prime Minister
Adel Abdul-Mahdi recently
said Iraqi troops could
deploy into Syria to pro-
tect Iraq from threats across
its borders. Iraq keeps rein-
forcements along its fron-
tier to guard against infil-
tration by IS militants, who
hold a pocket of territory
along the Euphrates River.
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