The street, and the game, and what happened here today
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The second and fifth worst trading days in stock market history have happened over the course of the last three trading sessions. Today, about a quarter of the loss happened in the last half hour, when Trump started talking at another press conference.
America’s pension plans, such as they are, are all tied up in the equity markets. This is obviously true for people who have defined contribution retirement accounts, but it’s also true for the shrinking number of people covered by defined benefit plans, since the assets of those plans are invested in the financial markets, and those benefits can’t be paid if those markets suffer a long term collapse.