Week In Review: How Trump's Policies Moved Stocks - Sunday, August 20

Catch up on the top industries and stocks that were impacted, or were predicted to be impacted, by the comments, actions and policies of President Trump and his administration with this weekly recap compiled by The Fly:

1. MANUFACTURING COUNCIL: President Donald Trump's American Manufacturing Council was in the spotlight this week as several CEO announced their departures, leading to its dissolvement. The first to announced he was leaving the Forum was Merck's (MRK) Chairman and CEO Kenneth Frazier. "As CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism," Fraizer wrote in a tweet.

This follows last weekend's tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia that left one dead and several people injured, and what was seen by many as hesitation from the President to condemn the white supremacists behind the rally. Trump responded to Merck CEO's announcement by tweeting that now he had resigned from the council, there will be more time to "LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!" Joining Frazier, Intel (INTC) CEO Brian Krzanich and Under Armour (UA; UAA) CEO Kevin Plank also stepped down on Monday from the American Manufacturing Council. Two days later was Campbell (CPB), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and United Technologies (UTX) turn to announced their departure. The same day, the President tweeted "Rather than putting pressure on the business people of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy &Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you!" The second group, the Strategic and Policy Forum, was led by Blackstone (BX) CEO Stephen Schwarzman, and included names such as JPMorgan (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon, PepsiCo (PEP) CEO Indra Nooyi, General Motors (GM) CEO Mary Barra, and Wal-Mart (WMT) CEO Doug McMillon. Back in June, Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk and Disney (DIS) CEO Bob Iger left Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum after the president said he would withdraw from the Paris climate accord. Musk also left Trump's manufacturing council.

2. AMAZON: On Wednesday, President Donald Trump tweeted once again about Amazon (AMZN), saying: "Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!"

3. HEALTH CARE: According to The Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration said the government will make a set of cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers for August, following threats funding would be stopped after Senate Republicans failed to repeal most of the Affordable Care Act. President Donald Trump has been urged to continue payments, which compensate insurers for reduced out-of-pocket costs for low-income members. Insurers have said they may leave ACA's markets or increase premiums in 2018 without the funding. Publicly traded companies in the space include Aetna (AET), Anthem (ANTM), Centene (CNC), Cigna (CI), Health Net (HNT), Humana (HUM), Molina Healthcare (MOH), UnitedHealth (UNH) and WellCare (WCG).

4. BANNON EXITS WHITE HOUSE: Steve Bannon, the former executive chair of Breitbart News, who had been serving as President Donald Trump's chief strategist, officially resigned on Friday, following weeks of speculation. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement on Friday, "White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve's last day." Sources close to Bannon have said he plans to return to Breitbart News. Joel Pollak, a current senior editor at Breitbart, tweeted the following hashtag after news of Bannon's White House departure: "#WAR". The stock market, which was at highs of the day at the time Bannon's departure was announced, declined throughout the rest of the day and into the weekend. "Week in Review" is The Fly's weekly recap of its recurring series of "Trump Effect" exclusive stories.
 

How did you like this article? Let us know so we can better customize your reading experience.

Comments

Leave a comment to automatically be entered into our contest to win a free Echo Show.