‘We hate the unknown’: Stocks fall sharply amid economic fears

Three-month drop shows traders’ worries about future slowdown.

The stock market Friday capped a tumultuous three months with yet another substantial drop.

After a roller-coaster ride through autumn, the Dow Jones Industrial average fell 414.23 points to finish the first trading day of winter at 22,445.37.

The causes behind stock mar- ket gyrations are often mysterious, but it is hard to avoid thinking there is a troubling message behind the drop in stock prices this autumn, financial experts say.

“The stock market is concerned that there’s a significant slowdown ahead of us in 2019,” said Adrian Cronje, CEO and chief investment officer at Balentine, an Atlanta-based wealth management firm. “I don’t want to say that things are so gloomy. But the situation looks a lot dicier than it has for a long time.”

The current economic expansion is about six months from being the longest on record, he said. “They say that expansions don’t die of old age, but they can die of mistakes, like a trade war or the Fed raising interest rates too high.”

The market started winter the same way it roiled through the fall: Since September, the Dow has fallen nearly 4,300 points — giving up 16 percent of its value. This week accounted for more than 1,500 points of that retreat.

The sharp decline comes with the economy growing and producing jobs. And while there are threats, none seems fatal — at least not right away. But many modest dangers are starting to add up, some economists say.

There has been a slowly building trade battle with China, the issuing of modest tariffs and the talk of raising them much higher. There has been the Federal Reserve’s slow but steady campaign of rate hikes, which makes borrowing more expensive.

‘We hate the unknown’

Many corporate leaders — especially the chief financial officers who track the numbers — are worried, Cronje said. “Uncertainty is giving CFO’s pause. The CFO’s have really been rattled by this talk about a trade war.”

All these headwinds could abate and leave growth hardly changed, but they could also grow stronger and more dangerous — and it’s very hard to predict, said economist Tom Smith of Emory University’s Goizueta School of Business.

The market reacts badly to these kinds of questions, he said. “It’s nervousness. People can’t take the unknown. We hate the unknown.”

Adding to the mix was this week’s federal flip-flop between a shutdown and a compromise that would keep government running.

“Companies want to know,” Smith said. “The market is going crazy because it can’t get good information.”

Day to day, the stock market has no impact on the economy. But when it falls hard, consumers and companies alike can get spooked.

“They might stop buying cars,” Smith said. “They might stop buying houses. Companies might stop building up, they might start laying people off.”

Fears like that can become reality, he said. “The danger is in creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.”