What you need to know in markets on Friday

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Trade fears continue to weigh on stocks.

The Dow (^DJI) snapped a three-day winning streak on Thursday and closed down 27.59 points, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 0.22% and the Nasdaq (^IXIC) dropped 0.25%.

The G20 summit in Argentina will continue to garner attention on Friday. On Thursday, President Donald Trump abruptly canceled his planned meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. He tweeted saying that due to the Ukraine crisis, he thought it would be best not to meet. The main event of the summit continues to be the working dinner planned for Saturday when Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will discuss trade.

The Chicago Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) data for the month of November will be released Friday morning. Economists polled by Bloomberg are expecting a reading of 58.5 versus 58.4 for October.

There are no notable earnings reports scheduled for Friday.

Here’s what caught markets correspondent Myles Udland’s eye.

Market commentary

President Donald Trump remains set on getting the U.S. what he thinks are better trade deals.

But many economists and investors disagree with Trump’s approach to trade and believe imposing tariffs on imports will directly result in what are effectively taxes on U.S. consumers as a result of higher prices.

In a tweet on Thursday, however, Trump said, “Billions of Dollars are pouring into the coffers of the U.S.A. because of the Tariffs being charged to China, and there is a long way to go. If companies don’t want to pay Tariffs, build in the U.S.A. Otherwise, lets just make our Country richer than ever before!”

As tends to be the case with almost everything Trump says, he is a little bit right and a little bit wrong. Tariffs imposed on imports from China make the price of those goods more expensive, which hurts consumers. Taxes paid to the U.S. Treasury from tariffs, however, are clearly rising.

The following chart was flagged for us by Neil Dutta at Renaissance Macro and shows the sharp uptick in government tax receipts from customs duties. In other words, tariffs.

Tax receipts from import duties have surged this year as the Trump administration began imposing tariffs on the import of some goods from China. Trump has said this increased revenue is a sign the U.S. is getting the result it wants from his trade war with China. (Source: FRED)
Tax receipts from import duties have surged this year as the Trump administration began imposing tariffs on the import of some goods from China. Trump has said this increased revenue is a sign the U.S. is getting the result it wants from his trade war with China. (Source: FRED)

In July, the Trump administration put tariffs on $34 billion worth of imports from China; in September, the administration added a 10% tariff on the import of $200 billion in additional imports, a figure set to rise to 25% at the beginning of 2019.

In the third quarter of 2018, over $51 billion in taxes were paid to the Treasury as a result of duties imposed on imports, up from about $38 billion in the same quarter last year. Through the first three quarters of 2018, more than $136 billion in taxes were paid to the Treasury from these duties. In all of 2017, these duties totaled around $153 billion.