Trade wars are a stupid idea, but it seems we’re going to have one anyway

Global markets have reacted badly to the escalation of the US-China trade war. John Stepek looks at what’s going on and what it means for your money.

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The US and China are slapping tariffs on each other's exports

Unlike markets, I'm in a good mood this morning. We're working on a project here at MoneyWeek Towers which I know you'll be very interested in. I had a big meeting on the subject yesterday, and while I can't go into more detail right now, I'm aiming to have more to tell you later in the week keep an eye on this space...

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.