What happened
Shares of Sohu.com (SOHU +4.09%) were up 11.4% as of 11:15 a.m. EDT Wednesday despite a lack of company-specific news. For perspective, today's pop only partially recoups Sohu's nearly 27% post-earnings plunge on Monday, when the Chinese internet media company blamed the "current challenging macroeconomic environment" for the relative underperformance of its brand-advertising business.
IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.
So what
It certainly didn't help when major market indexes also plunged on Monday after Chinese regulators escalated trade tensions by allowing the yuan to fall to its lowest level against the dollar in more than a decade at the start of the week -- a move that could make China's exports more competitive by making them cheaper in foreign currencies. Not much has changed on that front since. The U.S. Treasury Department promptly responded by labeling China a "currency manipulator," and China later confirmed it has suspended imports of all U.S. agricultural goods.
That said, this morning, Trump also shifted his attention to the United States' own Federal Reserve, urging the central bank to pursue more aggressive rate cuts and "stop their ridiculous quantitative tightening NOW" -- even though the Fed's Open Market Committee already voted last week to end their quantitative tightening program two months early. Trump added that "our problem is not China," saying the Middle Kingdom's currency is "under siege" and that it's already "losing companies by the thousands to other countries."
Now what
Again, none of these developments directly involve Sohu. But Sohu stock is undoubtedly swinging at the mercy of our broader markets. Given its outsized losses earlier this week on trade concerns, as well as the fact that stocks generally seem to be attempting to recover their own losses as I type, it's no surprise to see Sohu stock bouncing back today.
