SCARY DAY FOR STOCKS

2018 gains wiped out

October has been a spooky month for Wall Street.

Major stock indexes saw their gains wiped out for the year as fears of weakened global growth, a slowdown in once-high-flying tech stocks and continued rate hikes had investors rushing for the exits.

The tech-weighted Nasdaq plunged 4.4 percent — suffering its worst day in seven years — as concern mounted that trade tensions between the US and China could dent profits.

Both the Dow Jones industrial average and S&P 500 are in negative territory for 2018 after falling 2.4 percent and 3.1 percent in Wednesday’s volatile session.

The CBOE Volatility Index — the Wall Street fear gauge known as the VIX — climbed almost 22 percent, to 25.2, late on Wednesday as the Dow shed nearly 400 points in the last two hours of trading to end the day down 608.01 points, at 24,583.42.

For all the panic, analysts had a difficult time pointing to one clear catalyst for Wednesday’s bloodletting.

“At this point, it’s really only one thing: outright fear. Fear that a full-blown correction gets worse,” Michael Antonelli, managing director at RW Baird, told The Post.

Also weighing on Wall Street are the upcoming midterm elections, which may have traders feeling skittish with their dollars until the outcome is known.

“It’s a matter of getting through the uncertainty,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Advisor Alliance.

Adding fuel to the fire was the release of the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book, which indicated that US companies are worried about tariffs and rising material costs.

Companies tend to “pass prices to the consumer or eat them, which means lower earnings, and that’s knocking the wind out of the market,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities.

Despite the fear in the market, some on the Street were less worried.

“The economy is fine, earnings are fine, the Fed is doing exactly what it should do and investors should do to the market what the Fed is doing to the president right now — ignore it,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group.

Early trading was less volatile as jet manufacturer Boeing boosted its outlook after reporting better-than-expected third-quarter profits.

ASyou probably already know, the stock market has been having problems of late.

Let me add another thing you can worry about: According to Refinitiv Thomson Reuters, 80.7 percent of the 140 companies that have recently reported quarterly results have beaten the estimates of Wall Street analysts. And only 10.7 percent have seen earnings miss expectations.

That is great news considering that historically only 64 percent exceed the estimates and 21 percent miss.

So why is that bad news? Because even under these wonderful conditions, the stock market isn’t doing well. And that bodes poorly for the market when corporate earnings get back to their historical norms.

Next year, corporate profits probably won’t be as impressive because 2019 earnings will be compared with the 2018 numbers, which have been aided by the reduction in corporate taxes.

Is the US economy slowing? And if it is, who is going to be blamed?

It is a week and a half until the midterm congressional elections, so it is not surprising that the fingers are being pointed in all directions — just in case voters decide that the economy really isn’t as good as it is being advertised.

On Friday, we will know how the economy did in the third quarter of this year. The Atlanta Federal Reserve thinks the nation’s gross domestic product grew at a 3.9 percent annual pace over the July through September period.

If that’s the case, the economy will add another good quarter to the 4.2 percent annual GDP growth in the second three months of 2018.

But here’s the catch. The economy has had a spurt like this before in recent years. And it has done so without the help of a massive tax cut that is adding to the nation’s deficit.

In 2014, the second quarter grew 5.1 percent and the third quarter expanded 4.9 percent. Those quarters, however, were sand- wiched by quarters of mediocre results. And the economy remained weak enough to stir up voter discontent. Could it happen again?

The folks at the Economic Cycle Research Institute, a private, nonpartisan think tank that used to be close to the Fed, says a slowdown is already happening.

“The economy has been boosted by massive fiscal stimulus — plus an energy boom for the ages — steering it clear of recession risk,” says co-founder Lakshman Achu

than. “But it’s remarkable that it is already in a slowdown that not many see — certainly not the Fed.”

And a big drop in new home sales reported Wednesday is also making economists wary.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has continued raising interest rates because he believes the economy no longer needs the stimulus that low borrowing costs offer. That belief was driven home this week by a number of Fed governors who have publicly backed Powell’s stance. But it is clear whom President

Trump will blame if the economy slows measurably. He’s been criticizing Powell for a number or weeks, including a statement Tuesday complaining that President Obama got to work with zero interest rates and that the Fed isn’t giving Trump the same treatment. “I’m very unhappy,” the president said.

Powell, if he decides to go on the offensive, will likely blame Trump trade wars for slowing the economy. And he’ll point to any number of companies that have blamed higher tariffs — or expected higher tariffs — for their missing earnings forecasts.

The mood is already ugly between the Fed and the White House. And it’s unlikely to get much better.

President Trump promised this week he’d announce a 10 percent middleclass tax cut shortly — meaning, before the congressional elections.

While such a cut may get Republicans a few votes, that kind of talk will also guarantee that the Fed will get more nervous and won’t think twice about raising interest rates again.

The Fed is already worried about too much money — liquidity — in the economy. Promising to give people more money to spend, even if it’s an obvious political move, will make the Fed more steadfast.

Here’s something the Republicans can worry about.

A full 78 percent of Americans earning less than $30,000 a year report that their financial situation has not improved since the 2016 election. And 27 percent say it is worse, according to a new report by Bankrate.com. On the other hand, 54 percent of Americans with income over $75,000 a year are feeling better about their financial condition and 26 percent in that group is feeling “much better” about their finances. Retirement-age people seem to be struggling, with 76 percent over age 65 saying their finances have not improved over the past two years.

You can talk all you want about the low unemployment rate — which, as I’ve said many times, is meaningless — or GDP growth, but the real issue in people’s heads when they finally vote is this: “Am I better off now than I was under the last guy?”