The Boston Globe - 27.08.2019

C4 Business The Boston Globe TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019

25

THEBOSTONGLOBE

Indexof publicly traded companiesinMassachusetts

Stocks closed broadly higher as investors found reason to

be cautiously optimistic about the potential for progress in

the costly US-China trade war. The gains reversed some of

the major indexes’ hefty losses on Friday, when jitters over

the latest escalation in the dispute roiled the market, con-

tributing to its fourth straight weekly loss. Monday’s rally

got its start early after President Trump said his negotiators

got encouraging calls from China on Sunday, though Chi-

na’s foreign ministry denied knowledge of any calls. That

did not dim investors’ willingness to bid stocks higher.

Big tech companies, which do a lot of business in China, ac-

counted for a big share of the gains. Apple rose 1.9 percent,

and Microsoft added 1.5 percent. But the major indexes are

on track for losses of 3 percent or more in August. Traders

have been repeatedly whipsawed by turns in the trade war.

Ben Phillips, at EventShares, credited Monday’s bounce to

investors buying back in after a big sell-off more than on

real optimism over the trade conflict. ‘‘Every time you have

a big down day like that you expect the following day to be

a little bit of a recovery bounce,’’ he said.

Markets

Investors give down market a lift

DOW JONES industrial average

NASDAQ Composite index

S&P 500 index

Globe 25 index

SOURCE:BloombergNews

said Geng Shuang.
Still, investors exhaled. On Mon-
day, the Dow Jones average rose 270
points, or 1.05 percent, to close at
25,899. The Standard & Poor’s 500
index was up 1.1 percent. On Friday,
both benchmarks lost more than 2
percent, so the cost of Trump’s ti-
rade wasn’t fully recouped.
As I have noted before, Trump
appears to be playing a dangerous
game of General Tso’s chicken. His
view that the US trade relationship
with China must change has sup-
port, not just among his base, but
also with many Democrats.
But his volatile approach has
spooked investors and business ex-
ecutives, who are hunkering down
because they’re unsure of how it’s all
going to play out. Economists and
Federal Reserve policy makers see
the trade war as the biggest threat
to the US economy.
“There is a growing sense of un-
certainty about a range of factors in-
cluding trade, Fed rates, Brexit, and
the 2020 election,” said Tony Bediki-
an, head of Global Markets for Citi-
zens Commercial Banking in Bos-
ton. Fed chairman Jerome Powell
said Friday that the central bank
can provide only so much protec-
tion from a downturn sparked by
global trade disruptions.
“Trade policy uncertainty seems
to be playing a role in the global
slowdown and in weak manufactur-
ing and capital spending in the
United States,” he said at the annual
gathering of Fed officials, econo-
mists, and others in Jackson Hole,
Wyo. “While monetary policy is a

uEDELMAN
Continued from Page C

powerful tool that works to support

consumer spending, business in-

vestment, and public confidence, it

cannot provide a settled rule book

for international trade.”

The president has repeatedly

criticized Powell, who goes by Jay,

for raising interest rates last Decem-

ber, and then not lowering them

quickly enough this year.

“My only question is, who is our

bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chair-

man Xi?” he tweeted Friday. Xi Jin-

ping is China’s paramount leader.

On Monday, Trump called Xi, an

autocrat who has overseen a brutal

crackdown on all dissent in China, a

“brilliant man.” There were no kind

words for Powell.

It is true that Trump’s tariffs have

inflicted pain on China, but unless

its economy hits a wall, Xi appears

inclined to drag negotiations out

until past the US elections because,

you know, Trump could lose. And

the president is unlikely to back

down. That’s not in his DNA.

For a president whose preferred

management style is chaos, a seem-

ingly permanent trade war serves a

purpose by casting him as a leader

with the courage to make hard

choices. If we end up in a recession,

it will be Jay Powell’s fault.

So hang on to the safety bar: This

roller coaster ride is far from fin-

ished.

Material from the Associated Press

was used in this report. You can

reach me at

[email protected] and

follow me on Twitter

@GlobeNewsEd.

China trade deal not likely anytime soon

tion, is able to sustain this type of
growth and make sure it’s able to
work for our companies and em-
ployees,” she said in an interview.
Given the sector’s boom, why
does she believe commuting poses
such a threat?
As it turns out, MassBio recently
conducted an online survey of bio-
tech commuters. The trade group
plans to issue the results next
month. But Steele said it’s obvious
that getting to and from work has
reached a “breaking point” — based
on how many employees wanted to
participate in the survey. The last
such poll, in 2016, drew about 300
responses, she said. This one at-
tracted 2,000.
The mood of those who respond-
ed, she said, “doesn’t look very
good.”
That’s not surprising, given the
June 11 train derailment that
caused massive delays on the
MBTA’s Red Line. It serves Kendall
Square, the Cambridge neighbor-
hood that’s ground zero for the bio-
tech industry in Massachusetts.
About two weeks after the derail-
ment, CEOs and managers of about
three dozen employers that collec-
tively employ tens of thousands of
workers in Kendall Square wrote to
state officials to say the public tran-
sit system had entered a “state of
emergency.” The business leaders
included executives from Biogen
and several other drug companies.
ThelettercamedaysafterTrans-
portation for Massachusetts, an ad-
vocacy group, called for adding 25
cents to the state’s gasoline tax (es-
sentially doubling it) and imposing
the state sales tax on Uber and Lyft
rides (in lieu of the current nominal
20 cents-per-ride fee). The group al-
so called for congestion-pricing tolls
on highways within the Route 128
beltway.
While many of the previously
aired concerns about commuting
focused on the challenges of getting
to and from Cambridge and Boston,
MassBio officials say their soon-to-
be-released report shows discontent
among biotech commuters in a
much broader swath of the state.
Among the other notable find-
ings in the industry snapshot re-
leased Tuesday:
RVenture capital invested in
Massachusetts companies reached
a record high in 2018, with $4.8 bil-
lion invested in biopharma compa-
nies. Cambridge businesses drew a
disproportionate share of the mon-
ey, receiving 63 percent of all ven-
ture capital. The pace of such in-
vestment fell in the first half of
2019, totaling just under $1.5 bil-
lion in that period.
REighteen Massachusetts bio-
tech companies went public in
2018, representing nearly a third of
all US-based biotech IPOs. More
than three-quarters of the 18 were
in Cambridge. In the first half of
this year, nine Massachusetts bio-
techs went public, suggesting a

uBIOTECH
Continued from Page C

trend similar to last year’s.

RTakeda Pharmaceutical Co. of

Tokyo has vaulted past Sanofi to be-

come the biggest biopharma em-

ployer in Massachusetts. Takeda

had 4,927 employees in the state,

compared with 4,800 for Sanofi, al-

though a Takeda spokeswoman said

in July that the number will soon

exceed 5,000.

Takeda recently closed a block-

buster $62 billion deal to buy Shire,

inheriting some 3,000 Shire work-

ers in the state, most of them in

Lexington and Cambridge. Takeda

is positioned to grow more when

the company moves its US head-

quarters from suburban Chicago to

Massachusetts by year’s end.

RThe biggest Massachusetts-

based drug company continues to

be Biogen of Cambridge, with 2,

workers. The next-biggest is Vertex

Pharmaceuticals of Boston, with

1,741 employees.

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached

at [email protected].

Transit’s a sore spot for biotech world

JONATHAN WIGGS/GLOBE STAFF/FILE 2015

President

Trump’s

volatile

approach

has

spooked

investors

and

business

executives,

whoare

hunkering

down

because

they’re

unsureof

howit’sall

goingto

playout.

Biogen, on

Binney Street

in Cambridge

(above), is the

largest biotech

company in

Massachusetts;

other giants in

the state

include Takeda

(left) and

Sanofi.

JONATHAN WIGGS/GLOBE STAFF/FILE 2019

PAT GREENHOUSE/GLOBE STAFF/FILE 2019

SUSAN WALSH/ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILE 2019

President Trump appears to be playing a dangerous game with

Chinese President Xi Jinping.