A Year After Armageddon, Stock Traders Stare Into a Familiar Abyss

  • The variety of risks hasn’t changed much since September 2018
  • Last year’s plunge continues to reverberate with Fed’s Powell

Source: Getty Images

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Nobody knew it then, but this time last year, the rallying U.S. stock market was about to begin a plunge that would erase $5 trillion from share values and convince a lot of people a recession was at hand.

Then, as now, a trade war was raging, earningsBloomberg Terminal in doubt and manufacturing losing steam. In the stock market, swings were getting violent -- even as the S&P 500 was pulling itself over 2,900 and flirting with an all-time high. Fast-forward to today, and the picture bears an eerie similarity.