US Stocks & Dollar Plunge as Trump Intensifies Attack on Fed Boss

The BBC is reporting that US stocks and the dollar plunged again as President Donald Trump intensified his attacks on the US central bank boss.

This time, the president called the Fed Chair, Jerome Powell, “a major loser” for not lowering interest rates.

In a social media post, Trump called on Powell to cut interest rates pre-emptively to help boost the economy, saying he had been consistently too slow to respond to economic developments.

Trump’s criticism of Powell’s handling of the US economy comes as his own plans for tariffs have driven a stock market sell-off and raised fears of economic recession.

The president’s intensifying clash with Powell, whom he named to lead the Fed during his first term, has added to the market turmoil.

The S&P 500, which tracks 500 of the biggest US companies, fell roughly 2.4 per cent on Monday. It has lost roughly 12 per cent of its value since the start of the year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 2.4 per cent and has dropped about 10 per cent so far this year, while the Nasdaq fell more than 2.5 per cent and is down roughly 18 per cent since January.

However, on Tuesday, trading on most major stock indices in the Asia-Pacific region was subdued. Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed around 0.1 per cent lower, and the ASX 200 in Sydney closed around 0.3 per cent lower. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed about 0.3 per cent higher.

In European early trading, the UK’s FTSE 100 stock exchange was marginally lower by about 0.05 per cent, while Germany’s Dax was down around 0.5 per cent and France’s CAC was down 0.6 per cent.