Stock Traders Whipsawed as Trump Sets Sights on Defense, Housing

With a series of incendiary posts on his social-media platform, President Donald Trump shook up the stock market on Wednesday by announcing potentially game-changing new policies targeting the housing and defense industries.

The first post came at 12:45 p.m. New York time, when Trump wrote that he is immediately taking steps to “ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes” in an effort to foster housing affordability. The missive knocked down shares of a variety of housing related companies, from private equity firm Blackstone Inc. to homebuilders like PulteGroup Inc.