The United States and China may be issuing strongly worded statements, but officials on both sides seem keen to avoid a full-fledged trade war as both countries engaged in talks early in the week that made investors optimistic about the course of global trade.
Equity prices plummeted last week to a level where they were too cheap and bulls were probably getting ready to buy on the dip anyway, but once news broke that the U.S. and China are talking about avoiding a full-fledged trade war, the bulls took full control on Monday and pushed the Dow up by 669 points.
As the Q4 GDP growth rate reached 2.9%, investors were getting ready to brush off the bears later in the week, but once the White House proposed limiting investments from Chinese companies in certain tech sectors, the mood changed drastically.
In the end, tech stocks were hit the hardest this week, but overall volatility soon jumped out of control, as did the endless cycle of a directionless market.
Be sure to check out our previous week’s edition here, in which the Fed issued its first interest rate hike of the year and sounded very hawkish about economic growth prospects in 2018 and 2019.
