If North Korea continues to threaten the United States, it will be “met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,” President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday. So far there has been no official response from North Korea or its ruler Kim Jong Un.
But Wall Street has spoken.
With the President’s comments, the Dow dropped 0.2%, or 33.08 points, to end the day at 22,085.34 — putting a nine-day, all-time high streak on ice. Nasdaq slipped 13.31 points, down 0.21% to 6,370.46. And the S&P 500 slipped 0.24 percent as well, losing 5.99 points to close at 2,474.92.
The stock market has been a bright spot during the tumultuous opening months of the Trump Administration, and Trump himself has frequently taken credit as stocks have soared. But the threat of a violent response is something few, if any, presidents have wielded with great relish. While stern warnings from presidents have moved markets in the past, Trump’s penchant for off-the-cuff remarks have already been known to send tremors down Wall Street. Just days into the Trump Administration, tweets about Boeing and Lockheed Martin shook up those companies’ stocks.
In response to North Korea’s recent missile tests, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed more than $1 billion in sanctions against Pyongyang.