Axios told you on Tuesday that 2018 has been "brutal" for the stock market, and Bloomberg's Stephen Gandel followed up on Wednesday by saying that it's even worse than that. Above is a chart of one key valuation metric: the stock market's price-to-earnings ratio.
For the first year of the Trump presidency, valuations rose steadily. But in his second year, they've imploded and are now well below their level when he took office. The S&P 500 now trades at 17.5 times its earnings over the past 12 months. That's down 25% from the peak of 23.4 in January.
Online shoppers spent $6.22 billion during this year’s Black Friday alone — a record high and a 23.6% jump from last year, CNBC reports. It cited Adobe Analytics, which tracks transactions at 80 of the top 100 U.S. internet retailers like Amazon.
The details: The sales are being driven by the purchasing of big-ticket items from shoppers’ smartphones, including appliances, electronics and furnitures. Meanwhile, retailers like Target, Kohl's and Walmart are allowing customers to purchase items online and hoping that when they arrive to pick up their items, they'll buy more at the stores.
The cultural phenomenon of Black Friday is radically changing as brick-and-mortar department store giants die off and online shopping becomes increasingly convenient and popular, the New York Times' Tiffany Hsu reports.
Why it matters: "The retail bonanza is increasingly met with indifference or disapproval by Americans who want to spend time with their families, sleep in and give underpaid retail employees a break," Hsu writes.
About three-quarters of the burden of President Trump’s tariffs imposed on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods will fall on Chinese exporters while U.S. consumers and companies will only see an average 4.5% price increase on the affected goods, according to a new analysis by EconPol Europe.
Why it matters: The paper indicates that Trump's trade war against China might be working, in that some calibrations indicate the bilateral trade deficit between the U.S. and China may fall by 17% and Trump's efforts could reduce American imports of certain Chinese goods.
Editor's note: This piece was clarified to add further information from the brief and to show more clearly how the tariff burden may be distributed.
