ECONOMY/FEDERAL RESERVE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “U.S. President Donald Trump said that Wednesday’s [10-9-18] stock market sell-off was in fact a long-awaited ‘correction,’ and that the Federal Reserve, which has been raising U.S. interest rates, had gone ‘crazy.’ Trump’s use of the word correction to describe the sell-off could be significant. A stock market correction is defined as a decline of at least 10 percent from the high point of the past 52 weeks, suggesting that major U.S. indices have further to fall. Despite Wednesday’s sell-off, the S&P 500 would still need to more than double its losses. It has fallen nearly 5 percent from its all-time closing high on Sept. 20. The Nasdaq has fallen 8.5 percent from its record closing high on Aug. 29. An additional 1.5-percentage-point fall would confirm a correction for that index. Stocks have sold off in recent days on worries about higher borrowing costs. A spike in Treasury yields and solid U.S. economic data have sparked concerns that the Federal Reserve may pick up the pace of its interest rate hikes.”
–Jeff Mason, “Trump calls stock sell-off ‘a correction,’ says Federal Reserve is ‘crazy’,” Reuters, October 10, 2018 2:43 pm