Trump after declining stocks: "The Fed went crazy"

President TrumpDonald John TrumpUniversity offers a course on the fiancee 'Trumpaganda & # 39; of a missing Saudi journalist who calls Trump to ask him for help Grassley says he would not consider a Supreme Court nomination in 2020 MORE Wednesday said the Federal Reserve "went crazy" with a series of expected interest rate hikes after US stocks suffered their heaviest daily losses since February.

Trump told Air Force One reporters that the Fed had raised rates too quickly after being questioned about its reaction to From Wednesday massive sale of stocks, according to reports from the pool.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 831 points Wednesday afternoon, lose 3.2% on the day. The composite Nasdaq lost 4% and the S & P 500, 3.3%, as investors sought refuge from rising interest rates.

"No, I think the Fed is making a mistake. They're so tight, "said Trump," I think the Fed went crazy, so you can say, "Well, it's a lot of security actually." And that's a lot of security and it gives you a lot of margin, but I think the Fed has gone crazy.

Trump said Wednesday's stock-market drop was "in fact … a correction we've been waiting for for a long time," but reiterated his frustration with the Fed.

"I really do not agree with what the Fed is doing, okay?" Trump said.

Trump has regularly criticized the Fed since July, when he told CNBC that he was "not happy" with the central bank's plan to raise interest rates. The president also criticized Fed chairman Jerome Powell, who Trump had named last year for not keeping his rates low.

The Fed has raised interest rates eight times since 2015 and six times since Trump took office to return to a neutral monetary policy. The bank must raise rates quickly enough to avoid widespread inflation, but slow enough to allow maximum and sustainable economic growth.

Unlike most Republicans and right-wing economists favoring higher rates, Trump urged the Fed to keep rates low to support the strength of the US economy. The president said lower rates would help the best US trade negotiations and minimize the risk of rapid price increases.

Trump is also sensitive to stock market movements and often praises the sharp rise in share prices that began shortly after his election in 2016. Higher lending costs typically reduce corporate profit margins and dampen investment, pushing traders to Treasury securities and other products considered safe havens.

Fear of rising interest rates contributed significantly to Wednesday's sales, as investors sought to put their money in bonds and less volatile stocks.

Investors have also begun to pull out of the tech stocks that have dominated the bull market of the past decade. Shares of Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, Apple and Twitter all fell during the day and suffered one of the heaviest losses.

Updated at 18:19