Weekly Market Commentary 08/17/2018

The financial markets endured another wild ride this week, buffeted
by external events that overshadowed mostly good news on the
domestic economy. Investors ran for the hills early in the week
as President Trump imposed both sanctions and higher tariffs on
Turkey, sending the lira tumbling and raising the specter of another
currency crisis among emerging market nations. But the pessimism
that dominated market sentiment early in the week evaporated
towards the week’s end when news that the U.S. and China
scheduled meetings among lower-level officials aimed at resolving
the escalating trade dispute between the world’s two largest
economies. That, in turn, sparked a wave of investor optimism that
helped propel stock prices sharply higher on Thursday, which more
than erased the slide ignited by the Turkish spat.