By Barani Krishnan
Investing.com - President Donald Trump blasted the Federal Reserve on Twitter Thursday after a grim outlook on U.S. recovery from the central bank’s chief took down the stock market by more than 3%, cutting short Wall Street’s weeks-long rally.
“The Federal Reserve is wrong so often,” Trump tweeted, a day after Fed Chairman Jay Powell said he anticipated a "long road" ahead for U.S. recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, and that the central bank might keep interest rates near zero through 2022.
Trump, who has consistently criticized Powell and the Fed in the past, purportedly for not cutting rates quickly enough, disagreed again with the central bank’s assessment of Covid-19’s effect on the economy.
"I see the numbers also, and do MUCH better than they do,” tweeted Trump. “We will have a very good Third Quarter, a great Fourth Quarter, and one of our best ever years in 2021. We will also soon have a Vaccine & Therapeutics/Cure. That’s my opinion. WATCH!”
By 12:00 PM ET (16:00 GMT), Wall Street’s Dow was down more than 1,200 points, plunging 4.6%. The S&P 500 lost 3.8% while Nasdaq fell almost 3%.
Total U.S. Covid-19 cases topped 2 million, with a jump in cases reported in Florida, Texas, and Arizona after five weeks of declines across the country. The potential for a second wave of infections from the virus prompted fears there could be another at least partial shutdown of the US economy, which was mostly closed in March and April.