According to The New York Times, recent reports of the Trump Administration’s private coronavirus briefings fueled market sell-offs. Yahoo Finance’s Brian Cheung weighs in.
Video Transcript
JULIE HYMAN: Also sort of connected to politics, Brian, is your word on the street, because “The New York Times” is reporting that there were some secret briefings within the Trump administration that perhaps some profited from in the market.
BRIAN CHEUNG: Yes, Julie, very interesting from “The New York Times” reporting this morning that there were briefings between the National Economic Council and members of the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University on February 24 and 25, in which the Trump administration had privately expressed concern about the impact of the coronavirus on the US economy, even though publicly at the time, the likes of Larry Kudlow and the president were playing down those fears.
Apparently a memo that was written by attendees in those meetings were passed along to the likes of David Tepper, the very well-known hedge fund investor at Appaloosa Management, which may have had something to do with the stock market really sliding, as we remember at the end of February. It is important to caveat that the timing of all this is such that the stock market was really already selling off days before that briefing on February 21.
And we also know that there were the likes of David Tepper expressing concern about the coronavirus as early as the beginning of February. But it is still interesting that there were these previously undisclosed meetings between the National Economic Council and very big market movers in the equity space.
