Trump calls stock selloff ‘a correction,’ says Federal Reserve is ‘crazy’

ERIE, Pa. (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday’s stock market selloff was in fact a long awaited “correction,” and that the Federal Reserve, which has been raising U.S. interest rates, has gone “crazy.”

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Trump‘s use of the word “correction” to describe the selloff could be significant. A stock market correction is defined as a fall of at least 10 percent from the high point of the last 52 weeks.

“Actually it’s a correction that we’ve been waiting for a long time, but I really disagree with what the Fed is doing,” Trump told reporters before a political rally in Pennsylvania.

“I think the Fed has gone crazy,” Trump said.

U.S. stocks tumbled on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 and the Dow marking their biggest daily declines since Feb. 8, and technology stocks were at the center of the carnage as rising U.S. Treasury yields sent investors fleeing from risky assets.

U.S. long-dated Treasury yields rose again in extension of a trend over the last few weeks fueled by solid U.S. economic data that reinforced expectations of multiple interest rate hikes over the next 12 months.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; writing by Mohammad Zargham and Phil Stewart; editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Phil Berlowitz)