The consistent losses continued last week as this marked the fifth week in a row that all five of the major markets moved in tandem.
After opening slightly lower on Monday, the market traded into positive territory before selling off to end the day flat. The market opened higher on Tuesday before reversing course after news broke that the Democrats in the House would be opening a formal impeachment inquiry based on a whistleblower’s compliant of a July 25th call between President Trump and the president of Ukraine. The complaint stated that President Trump engaged in an act that could be viewed as a quid pro quo. In short, President Trump urged the Ukraine president to look into why an investigation into a company which Hunter Biden was involved with was abruptly terminated after Joe Biden was on record discussing how he had the Ukraine prosecutor fired while acting as Vice President.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-gas-tycoon-and-the-vice-presidents-son-the-story-of-hunter-bidens-foray-in-ukraine/2019/09/28/1aadff70-dfd9-11e9-8fd3-d943b4ed57e0_story.html
Things quickly reversed course Wednesday morning when the Trump administration released the Transcript of the call in question. Much like the prior Russian Collusion investigation, both parties are seeing guilt and innocence almost immediately while they debate the perception of the same facts. You can read the transcript yourself with this link:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-transcript-call/index.html
Regardless, later in the day, the Ukraine president stated:
“I think you read everything. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be involved [in] democratic, open elections of USA…We had, I think, [a] good phone call ... It was normal. We spoke about many things. I think you read that nobody pushed me.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/25/ukraine-president-on-trump-call-nobody-pushed-me.html
By Wednesday’s close, the S&P 500 climbed back to end just short of unchanged for the week. But the political debating continued Thursday, with the market selling off right before the end of the session to end the day slightly lower.
Finally, Friday opened slightly higher before it was reported that the White House was considering ways to limit U.S. investor participation in Chinese markets, including the possibility of delisting Chinese companies on the American exchanges.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49859048
By the end of the week, the S&P 500 had given back another percentage point of performance with only three of the underlying sectors managing to close higher on the week.
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