The stock market made some gains Monday, but still ended the year with its worst performance since the 2008 financial crisis, AP reports. The S&P 500 was down 6.2% at the end of the year, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 5.6%.
Between the lines, per Axios' Courtenay Brown: The crisis-era comparison sounds scary, but this is a very different market than it was in 2008, when the S&P fell 35%. The Dow and the S&P 500 also had the worst year since 2008 back in 2015. Look how well the stock market has done since then.
President Trump thoroughly upended the global trading system in 2018, slapping tariffs on billions of dollars' worth of imports as he pledged to "put America first" and renegotiate more favorable trade deals for the U.S. around the world.
The big picture: At their peak, Trump's trade wars were fought on three main fronts: Europe, North America and China. Since then, the president has agreed to a handshake ceasefire with the EU and successfully renegotiated NAFTA with Canada and Mexico, pending congressional approval. That leaves the spat with China — temporarily on hold until March 1 — as Trump's most expensive and high-stakes trade challenge heading into 2019.
We've listed 32 of the momentous events we lived through in 2018, as told on the front page of The New York Times.
Why it matters: During many of the peaks and troughs of history, the people living it didn't fully realize what was unfolding. But we all know we're navigating breathtaking history: Nearly every day could be — maybe will be — a book.
