Hannah Erin Lang
Appearances
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall, Wiping Out More Than $3 Trillion in Market Value
So there was turmoil in almost every corner of the market. And of course, what's driving this is professional investors and businesses just scrambling to adjust their plans and their strategies in response to what one analyst called a worst of the worst case scenario when it comes to the president's tariff plans.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall, Wiping Out More Than $3 Trillion in Market Value
This is something we've been monitoring for a while, but it was definitely cast in very stark terms today. The Magnificent Seven, these large cap tech stocks that were on top of the world for a while. They suffered some really big losses today. The Roundtail Magnificent 7 ETF that tracks all of those as a group, it was down about 7%.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall, Wiping Out More Than $3 Trillion in Market Value
Amazon and Apple were some of the biggest losers, around 8% or 9% losses today. But also, I was just really surprised by the depth and breadth of these losses. As I mentioned, there wasn't really a part of the market that wasn't touched by this at some point today.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall, Wiping Out More Than $3 Trillion in Market Value
Today might have been more intense than the days to come. This was the initial reaction, investors grappling with this plan that was much more severe than they had anticipated. But what I'm hearing from the sources that I talk to, whether they're professional portfolio managers or just investors,
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall, Wiping Out More Than $3 Trillion in Market Value
individual investors, is that this volatility, these up and down days seem to be something that's going to stick around just because of the potential impact of this plan. So this is definitely not the end of the effects that we're going to see from this plan. And unfortunately, not the end of what I expect will be continued volatility for investors as well.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall, Wiping Out More Than $3 Trillion in Market Value
Thank you so much for having me.
WSJ What’s News
U.S. Stocks Fall, Wiping Out More Than $3 Trillion in Market Value
It's fair to say that today was kind of a bloodbath for markets. We certainly got hints that that was coming. Stock futures started to turn lower last night after President Trump's speech. But this was really quite a dramatic day. We saw the S&P 500 fall a lot. We saw the Nasdaq notch its largest one-day point decline on record. Treasury yields fell. The dollar fell.
WSJ What’s News
Big Law Is Split on Trump’s Attacks: Push Back or Lay Low?
There's concerns about a trade war. There's concerns about the economy and even concerns about artificial intelligence. And, you know, if it's really going to deliver profits at these companies, as promised, Tesla stock is definitely being impacted by those broader market trends. But I do think Tesla has faced some unique problems. The company has seen some hits to their sales numbers.
WSJ What’s News
Big Law Is Split on Trump’s Attacks: Push Back or Lay Low?
Competition in the electric vehicle industry is intensifying. So I think that there are Tesla-specific challenges, there are Musk-specific challenges, and also just broader market dynamics at work here.
WSJ What’s News
Trump and Putin to Hold Ceasefire Talks
China on Monday reported that retail sales, which is a measure of consumer spending, accelerated for the first two months of the year. Industrial production and investments also grew more than expected.
WSJ What’s News
Trump and Putin to Hold Ceasefire Talks
On the downside, we did see that the unemployment rate jumped to the highest level in two years, as well as the property market continues to really struggle as measured by things like home sales, new construction starts. And in general, many economists' reactions to the data released on Monday is that it shows that China is on relatively solid footing, but
WSJ What’s News
Trump and Putin to Hold Ceasefire Talks
It's too early to tell exactly how Trump's tariffs could impact the economy.
WSJ What’s News
Markets Plummet as Concerns Around U.S. Recession Grow
It's a little bit of both. One thing that did seem to really rattle markets today were those comments that Donald Trump made over the weekend. Of course, we had Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, later say that there will be no recession in America today. But it does seem there was damage done from those Trump comments.
WSJ What’s News
Markets Plummet as Concerns Around U.S. Recession Grow
And it wasn't so much his answer specifically as much as what it signified about his approach to policy and how he's thinking about markets in his second term. And what does it signify? These comments, and also just the last few weeks on Wall Street, have signaled what looks like a real shift in how investors are thinking about Donald Trump and his presidency and the economy right now.
WSJ What’s News
Markets Plummet as Concerns Around U.S. Recession Grow
In the weeks immediately following Trump's victory, investors were pretty thrilled about what Trump could bring for the That carried through to the new year. Even as Trump was inaugurated, started overhauling the federal government, started to threaten tariffs, there was still that sense of enthusiasm.
WSJ What’s News
Markets Plummet as Concerns Around U.S. Recession Grow
But I started to notice a shift when that first round of tariffs on Canada and Mexico first took effect earlier this month. Of course, there were changes shortly after. But what I called money managers and market watchers the day that that first implementation happened, there was this Kind of shock I heard from the folks I talked to.
WSJ What’s News
Markets Plummet as Concerns Around U.S. Recession Grow
There's this sense that all of this tariff talk and these threats had been a negotiating tactic or all bluster. And some of the reactions I heard were, I can't believe he actually did it. So that's a little bit of what's happening right now is that investors are starting to realize that Trump might not be as fraudulent
WSJ What’s News
Markets Plummet as Concerns Around U.S. Recession Grow
friendly to or as concerned about the stock market as they had initially wanted or hoped for. And then layered on top of that, you have some broader concerns about the health of the U.S. economy.
WSJ What’s News
The Impact of Trump’s Tariffs on the Rest of His Agenda
Yeah, it's been a very volatile trading day. And most of this just comes down to the fact that investors are still really searching for clarity, for answers, or even just clues about the direction of Donald Trump's tariff policy and additionally how other countries will respond. respond to that, which companies here in the U.S. will be most exposed to that policy.
WSJ What’s News
The Impact of Trump’s Tariffs on the Rest of His Agenda
It really just all orbits around these questions about tariffs. What does this volatility tell us? We've certainly seen today, just given the wild swings in stocks over the course of the trading day, that there's a growing desperation among investors for some clarity on what lies ahead. It tells us that developments on the tariff front can have a really huge impact in markets right now.
WSJ What’s News
The Impact of Trump’s Tariffs on the Rest of His Agenda
We saw this brief mid-morning rally today, kind of wild swing up and down after there were these erroneous headlines that President Trump was considering a 90-day pause in tariffs. That report turned out to be false. The White House denied it. But it prompted a really big lift in major stock indexes, then promptly reversed after we found out it wasn't true.
WSJ What’s News
The Impact of Trump’s Tariffs on the Rest of His Agenda
And there are kind of two ways to interpret that based on the reporting I've done today. I spoke to some investors who saw that as a reassuring sign that any positive catalyst on the trade front could make a big difference for investors and for markets. The more pessimistic way to view that is a sign of that increasing desperation among the investment community and on Wall Street.
WSJ What’s News
Market Turmoil Deepens as Trump Stands By Tariffs
So the trade fight is really hitting China at a critical part of its economy. So exports last year actually accounted for nearly a third of China's GDP growth, which was the highest proportion since the late 1990s. So China's economy definitely is focused on exports as a driver of economic growth.
WSJ What’s News
Market Turmoil Deepens as Trump Stands By Tariffs
And with the US being a major market, any continued trade barriers are really putting pressure on that part of the economy. At the same time, Trump's Liberation Day tariffs also hit many Southeast Asian countries with pretty high levies as well. And part of the strategy for many Chinese manufacturers in the last several years has been to expand their operations,
WSJ What’s News
Market Turmoil Deepens as Trump Stands By Tariffs
to places like Vietnam, places like Cambodia, Indonesia, and those countries are also now facing high tariffs. And plus, an overall global slowdown, which many economists are expecting if tariffs go this high around the world, could really hurt demand in general for Chinese goods around the world. So it's really pressuring this part of the economy.
WSJ What’s News
Market Turmoil Deepens as Trump Stands By Tariffs
Yeah, in my conversations with Chinese manufacturers in the last few days, a few have brought up saying we are going to try to look for customers outside of the U.S. Some had mentioned, you know, the Middle East, Latin America. Of course, Southeast Asia is a huge trading partner. But as you mentioned, we are seeing efforts from countries around the world to put up trade barriers to Chinese goods.
WSJ What’s News
Market Turmoil Deepens as Trump Stands By Tariffs
There is a concern that a flood of cheap goods from China could hurt domestic industries. in their countries. And of course, it's hard to find a replacement for the U.S. market. I mean, it's such a huge component of final demand in world trade. So it's really hard to replace. So we saw in the last several days some Wall Street research houses
WSJ What’s News
Market Turmoil Deepens as Trump Stands By Tariffs
come out and say, we think these increased tariffs as a result of all of these factors impacting China's export sector could lead to around one to two percentage points of decline in China's GDP growth rate for this year.
WSJ What’s News
Market Turmoil Deepens as Trump Stands By Tariffs
Yeah, so there have been calls for quite some time from outside economists and government advisors to shift China's economy more toward a consumption-driven economy. such as the U.S. 's economy. And China has long prioritized using manufacturing and investments and infrastructure, that kind of thing, as a driver of growth.
WSJ What’s News
Market Turmoil Deepens as Trump Stands By Tariffs
But this year we saw that China did identify boosting domestic consumption as its top policy priority for the year. There are efforts to increase money supply, make policy looser and encourage spending, as well as efforts to implement policies such as subsidies for child care and raising wages, expanding pensions, all of which would work. factor into expanding spending from households.
WSJ What’s News
Market Turmoil Deepens as Trump Stands By Tariffs
There's also been a goods trade-in subsidy program that has been underway, and China is expanding that program this year, which already we have seen a correlating pickup in retail sales of appliances and consumer goods.
WSJ What’s News
Market Turmoil Deepens as Trump Stands By Tariffs
Yeah, a lot of investors have been waiting for that. It still remains to be seen, although we have seen this year more efforts to step up deficit spending in order to bolster the economy. We saw earlier this year China's leaders set a fiscal deficit to GDP ratio target of about 4%, which is higher than last year's 3% target.
WSJ What’s News
Market Turmoil Deepens as Trump Stands By Tariffs
And in recent commentary in places like People's Daily, which is the Communist Party's flagship newspaper, there has been commentary suggesting that China is willing to lower interest rates and also to increase deficit spending in an effort to boost inflation. household consumption, business consumption. So it certainly seems like the momentum is shifting more towards stimulus.
WSJ What’s News
Market Turmoil Deepens as Trump Stands By Tariffs
We're still awaiting more details on what exactly that will look like. And perhaps more importantly, we're waiting to see if this kind of pickup in consumer spending would be enough to make up for any hits to exports as a result of tariffs.