The Trump administration is trying to distance itself from igniting Wall Street's continuing meltdown as equities markets crashed by a combined 1,000 points on Monday and Tuesday.
Analysts were in agreement the uncertainties caused by Trump's trade war and rising interest rates are fueling a mad sell-off that on Tuesday alone erased all the gains made by the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average for the entire year.
They're now warning more loudly about the more credible potential for a recession in 2019.
Investors are also antsy about overvalued tech stocks; rising interest rates; a slowdown in global growth and, of course, Trump's trade war with China. Analysts said investors are selling tech stocks because of signs trade tensions between the U.S. and China are getting worse. A resolution to Trump's trade war doesn't seem to be coming in the short term, according to analysts.
The White House, however, is pushing back against predictions a recession caused by Trump's mistaken policies is just over the horizon. Chief economist Larry Kudlow called speculation that a recession is around the corner "nonsense." He said the administration's view is a recession "is so far in the distance, I can't see it."
Kudlow, however, seems to have not taken into account another massacre at Wall Street on Monday and Tuesday.
All the stock market gains of 2018 evaporated Tuesday in a mad rush of sell orders on Wall Street as investors dumped overvalued tech stocks and were in near panic about the never-ending trade war with China ignited by Trump.
The sell-off began with tech stocks including Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet (parent company of Google), but quickly infected other sectors such as retail, energy, and telecommunications.
The Dow Jones closed at 24,462, down 553 points or 2.2 percent. The S&P 500 dropped 49 points or 1.8 percent, while the tech-heavy NASDAQ plummeted 117 points or 1.7 percent.
The Dow and the S&P 500 fell into the red for the year -- the Dow was down 1 percent with the S&P 500 down 1.1 percent since Dec. 31, 2017.
On Monday, the Dow lost nearly 400 points, making this the worst start of a Thanksgiving week since 2011 for the Dow and the S&P 500, and since 2000 for the NASDAQ.
At Tuesday's close, the two-day losses came to 3.7 percent on the Dow; 3.4 percent on the S&P 500 and 4.7 percent on the NASDAQ.
Apple, Microsoft, United Health and 3M led another rout of blue chips. The Dow, down 396 points on Monday, sank another 551 points (2.2%) on Tuesday to expand its two-day loss to as much as 1,055 points intraday, or 4.1%. The NASDAQ composite dropped 1.7% while the NASDAQ 100 fell slightly more than that.
