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10/19/2018 15:10pm
Week in review: How Trump's policies moved stocks

Catch up on the top industries and stocks that were impacted, or were predicted to be impacted, by the comments, actions and policies of President Donald Trump and his administration with this weekly recap compiled by The Fly:

1. SAUDI ARABIA: On Thursday, Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced via Twitter, "Just met with @realDonaldTrump and @SecPompeo and we have decided, I will not be participating in the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia." This comes after top executives from BlackRock (BLK), Blackstone (BX), JPMorgan's (JPM), Ford (F) and Alphabet’s (GOOGL; GOOG) Google announced they will no longer attend the Saudi investor conference following accusations that the Saudi government ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Later on Thursday, Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO David Solomon said, "This incident is unacceptable and clearly they have to answer questions. [This] will have an impact on how we all interact." A spokesperson for the investment bank then confirmed to Bloomberg that none of its executives will attend the upcoming investment conference in Saudi Arabia. On Friday, President Trump tweeted: "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was never given or shown a Transcript or Video of the Saudi Consulate event. FAKE NEWS!"

2. FED 'THREAT': President Donald Trump, in an interview with Fox Business earlier this week, called the Federal Reserve his "biggest threat." "Because the Fed is raising rates too fast and it's independent so I don't speak to him but I'm not happy with what he's doing because it's going too fast because you look at the last inflation numbers, they're very low," Trump said.

3. UNIVERSAL POSTAL UNION TREATY: The U.S. will begin withdrawing from the Universal Postal Union, a United Nations treaty that lowered rates for foreign postal deliveries in the U.S., CNBC reported, citing senior White House officials. The White House said the treaty enables foreign postal services to take advantage of cheap shipments to the U.S., especially China, creating an unfair cost advantage over U.S. companies that ship goods, and hurting the income of the U.S. Postal Service.

4. SHOPIFY: Shopify (SHOP) was under pressure following the report that the Trump administration plans to withdraw from the Universal Post Office Treaty. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian, who has an Outperform rating and $165 price target on Shopify shares, called the fears "way overblown," and noted that Shopify's total exposure in China is low. "Management has previously stated that drop shipping represents a low percentage of GMV... and China inbound volume is a fraction of that small percentage,” he pointed out.

5. STAMPS.COM: Stamps.com (STMP) was also under pressure following the Universal Postal Union withdrawal news. Reiterating a Buy rating on the shares, Craig-Hallum analyst George Sutton told investors that if there is any impact from the move, an effective tariff on the landed price of Chinese made products, it will result in a modest benefit to the U.S. based e-commerce retailers, which do ship volume through the Stamps.com network. Further, Sutton argued that the stock traded down on an item that if enacted would likely have a modest positive impact on the revenue opportunity. Voicing a similar opinion, B. Riley FBR analyst Zach Cummins noted that the news created an "unwarranted" selloff in Stamps.com shares given the company's limited exposure to China. The analyst believes potential outcomes from the U.S.'s possible withdrawal could serve as net benefit for Stamps.com over the longer term.

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