Car crashes into New Year's crowd in Tokyo in suspected terror attack, eight injured

A car ploughed into crowds in Tokyo celebrating New Year's Day early on Tuesday in a suspected terror attack, leaving eight people injured, including one who was unconscious.

A police spokesman said one suspect, in his 20s, had been detained and that he had described the incident as an "act of terror." The spokesman declined to elaborate.

The incident happened shortly after midnight local time on Monday in a popular tourist area of Harajuku, near Meiji Shrine, in central Tokyo.

"I can't believe it, this is a place I'm familiar with, so it's very shocking," said Tatsuhiro Yaegashi, a 27-year-old worker in the area.

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China's Xi issues a message for Trump: We've got to cooperate

History shows that cooperation is the best choice for both China and the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Donald Trump in a congratulatory message on Tuesday to mark 40 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations.

The two countries agreed last month to a 90-day temporary ceasefire in their bitter trade war to give them time to hold fresh talks to try and end a dispute that has seen them level increasingly severe tariffs on each others' goods.

In his message to Trump, Xi said China-U.S. relations have experienced ups and downs but have made historic progress over the past four decades, state news agency Xinhua said.

This has brought huge benefits to the two peoples and has contributed greatly to world peace, stability and prosperity, Xi added.

"History has proved that cooperation is the best choice for both sides," Xi said.

Sino-U.S. relations are in an important stage, he added.

"I attach great importance to the development of China-U.S. relations and am willing to work with President Trump to summarise the experience of the development of China-U.S. relations and implement the consensus we have reached in a joint effort to advance China-U.S. relations featuring coordination, cooperation and stability so as to better benefit the two peoples as well as the people of the rest of the world," he said.

Trump sent his own congratulatory message in return, saying it was his priority to promote cooperative and constructive U.S.-China relations, Xinhua added.

Xi and Trump also spoke by telephone over the weekend. Trump said he had a "long and very good call" with Xi and that a possible trade deal between the United States and China was progressing well.

China and the United States have made plans for face-to-face consultations over trade in January, China's Commerce Ministry said last week.

Xinhua, in a commentary, said it was only natural the two countries would have disagreements and encounter problems, considering their "different social systems, development paths and historical and cultural backgrounds."

"At a time when the world is undergoing unprecedentedly profound changes and is fraught with risks and uncertainties, the global community expects even closer collaboration between the two largest economies," it said.

This year marks a series of sensitive anniversaries for China, including, in June, 30 years since the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

On Wednesday, Xi will make his first public appearance at an anniversary-related event, giving a speech about self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its sacred territory, on the 40th anniversary of a key policy statement that led to a thaw in relations with the island.

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China, the world's second-largest movie market, saw box office revenue growth slow in 2018

China's movie box office revenue rose 9 percent in 2018 to 60.98 billion yuan ($8.87 billion), state media reported, a slower pace than the 13.45 percent clocked for the previous year.

Domestic films recorded ticket sales of 37.9 billion yuan in 2018, accounting for 62 percent of the total box office, the official Xinhua news agency said late on Monday, citing data from the State Film Administration.

Domestic films in 2017 accounted for 54 percent of total box office.

China is the second-largest movie market globally after the United States, though it already has more total movie screens after years of rapid expansion in theater networks.

The number of movie screens reached 60,079 across the country, an increase of 9,303 from 2017, Xinhua said. That compares to just over 40,000 screens in the United States, according to data from U.S.-based National Association of Theatre Owners.

China, which is on track to eventually overtake the North America film market, has become an increasingly important region for global producers looking to pump up their box office returns, despite a quota on imported films and strict censorship.

China has been seeking to promote home-grown productions to rival imported Hollywood films. But several big-budget Chinese films have flopped while more modest productions have done well, highlighting the challenges China faces.

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Ahead of major Xi speech, Taiwan tells Beijing to 'face squarely the reality' of its situation

China must use peaceful means to resolve its differences with Taiwan and respect its democratic values, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said on Tuesday, ahead of a major speech about the island by Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

China has heaped pressure on Tsai since she took office in 2016, cutting off dialogue, whittling down Taiwan's few remaining diplomatic allies and forcing foreign airlines to list Taiwan as part of China on their websites.

China fears Tsai wishes to push for Taiwan's formal independence, though Tsai says she wants to maintain the status quo, and has regularly sent military aircraft and ships to circle the island on drills.

Taiwan is gearing up for presidential elections in a year's time. Tsai's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party suffered stinging losses to the China-friendly Kuomintang in mayoral and local elections in November.

In a new year's address at the presidential office in Taipei, Tsai said the two sides of the Taiwan Strait needed a pragmatic understanding of the basic differences that exist between them in terms of values and political systems.

"Here, I would like to call on China to face squarely the reality of the existence of the Republic of China on Taiwan," Tsai said, referring to the island's formal name.

China "must respect the insistence of 23 million people on freedom and democracy, and must use peaceful, on parity means to handle our differences," she added.

China's interference in Taiwan's political and social development is "Taiwan's biggest challenge at the moment," Tsai said. China denies any interference in Taiwan's internal affairs.

China views Taiwan as merely a wayward province, to be brought under its control by force if needed, with no right to international recognition as a separate political entity.

Democratic Taiwan has shown no interest in being ruled by autocratic China.

On Wednesday, Xi will give a speech to mark 40 years since a key policy statement that eventually led to a thaw in relations with Taiwan, the "Message to Compatriots in Taiwan."

On Jan. 1, 1979, China declared an end to what had been routine artillery bombardment of Taiwan-controlled offshore islands close to China and offered to open up communications between the two sides, after decades of hostility.

Chiang Kai-shek fled with defeated Nationalist forces to Taiwan in December of 1949 after loosing a civil war to the Communists.

Despite the deep business, cultural and personal links which exist today, no peace treaty or formal end to hostilities has been signed.

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Netflix is said to have poached CFO from Activision Blizzard

Netflix is expected to announce in the next few days that it has poached media finance veteran Spencer Neumann from Activision Blizzard to be its chief financial officer, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Neumann will start at Netflix in early 2019, the source said.

Earlier on Monday, Activision Blizzard said in a regulatory filing that it intended to fire Neumann for an unspecified reason.

Neumann has served in a variety of finance roles including at Walt Disney. He replaces David Wells, who in August said he planned to step down after 14 years at the streaming media giant.

The source said Netflix, which is making more of its own films and series, would like its next CFO to be based in Los Angeles with a focus on production finance. Wells is based northern California.

Activision in its regulatory filing said that it intended to terminate Neumann "for cause unrelated to the company's financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures." It said that Neumann had been placed on paid leave.

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North Korea's Kim says a 'new path' is inevitable if the US demands unilateral action

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Tuesday that his resolve for complete denuclearization remains unchanged but he may have no option but to seek a "new path" if the United States continues to demand unilateral action from North Korea.

In his New Year address, Kim said there would be faster progress on denuclearization if the United States takes corresponding action. He added that he is willing to meet U.S. President Donald Trump at any time.

Kim also called for South Korea to stop joint military exercises with "outside forces" involving strategic assets, while multilateral negotiations should be pursued to build a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

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Activision Blizzard plans to fire its CFO for an unspecified cause

Activision Blizzard shares moved down 1 percent in after-hours trading on Monday after the company said that it has informed its chief financial officer, Spencer Neumann, that it plans to let him go. For now he has been placed on a paid leave of absence.

The news comes after a rough year for the gaming company, whose shares have fallen 26 percent in 2018. Last month the company's stock fell 10 percent after it reported a decline in its number of users.

The plan to terminate Neumann, who joined in 2017 after a stint at Disney, is "unrelated to the Company's financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures," according to a regulatory filing. Neumann will have a chance to argue that there isn't reason to terminate his employment. But effective Tuesday, the company's chief corporate officer, Dennis Durkin, will take on CFO responsibilities.

Neumann, 48, received $9.47 million in total compensation in Activision Blizzard's most recent fiscal year, a filing says. He sits on the board of the nonprofit Make-A-Wish Foundation of America.

The company declined to comment.

WATCH: Activision Blizzard sinks after reporting decline in monthly active users

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Microsoft closes out 2018 as the top public company

Microsoft has not had a tremendous quarter. But it has still succeeded in regaining a coveted title: most valuable public U.S. company by market cap.

And even though Microsoft's product announcements still might not rivet the public like Apple's keynotes, the company has moved forward in measurable ways in 2018, following years of transition under CEO Satya Nadella.

Nadella's Microsoft, which has prioritized things like the cloud, open-source software and cross-platform services and has de-emphasized Windows, was arguably synthesized in a remark he offered in an interview with CNET. "You join here not to be cool, but to make others cool," he said.

It's now been one month since Microsoft captured the most-valuable-public-company title from Apple. This is the first time Microsoft is ending the year as the world's highest valued public company since 2002.

The fourth quarter hasn't been the best quarter in history for the company. (That was the first quarter of 1987, when the stock price doubled.) In fact, this was one of its poorer quarters through the years. The stock was caught up in a wider market selloff, and it declined by 11 percent this quarter.

And yet, Microsoft was discounted less than other top companies. Amazon fell 25 percent in the fourth quarter, and Apple went down 30 percent.

For all of 2018, shares of Microsoft rose almost 19 percent. It stands out as one of the top five components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the year. At the end of 2018, Microsoft's market cap stood at $779.7 billion as the stock closed at $101.57 per share.

Microsoft has had a strong year. It continued its streak of exceeding analysts' estimates for earnings and revenue with each of its earnings reports.

Its June GitHub acquisition, the third most expensive in the company's 43-year history, behind LinkedIn and Skype, has been well received.

"The rationale for acquiring the asset is appealing, in our opinion," Piper Jaffray analysts led by Alex Zukin wrote in a September note. "For Microsoft, developer mind share and wallet share is paramount. Microsoft believes that developers will have an outsized voice at the table in the age of digital transformation and that this was the most important reason for the acquisition. Secondarily, the company also believes that they can drive increased GitHub monetization."

Meanwhile, gaming became a $10 billion business for Microsoft for the first time. The LinkedIn business doubled and is now generating more than $5 billion in annual revenue. Surface hardware revenue is approaching the $5 billion mark. And the Azure public cloud continued to gain share, picking up new business from the likes of Gap and Walmart. In the third quarter, Microsoft gained more share than Amazon, IBM, Google or Alibaba in the cloud infrastructure services market, according to Synergy Research Group.

"After another year of strong relative performance ..., we believe Microsoft remains well positioned to continue to deliver steady top line and bottom line growth over the next 3-5 years given the breadth of its cloud portfolio, its growing annuity revenue base, and its strong balance sheet," Evercore ISI analysts led by Kirk Materne wrote in a note earlier this month.

Some analysts now expect Microsoft to be worth more than $1 trillion before the end of 2019.

WATCH: Technician says Microsoft could be the new king of tech

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Facebook's worst year ever is now over. Here's how its scandals affected the stock

Facebook is bidding farewell to a year plagued by privacy scandals and internal turmoil. On the last trading day of 2018, the stock closed at $131.09 per share, down 25.7 percent for the year. The stock ended the year lower than the previous one for the first time since its debut on the public market in 2012.

In 2018, a series of events soured public opinion on a company that has long prided itself on connecting people to one another. A movement to #deletefacebook trended on rival social media platforms, the company's top executives were asked to testify in front of legislators from around the globe and the heads of two of Facebook's most successful brands, Instagram and WhatsApp, stepped down. Investors took notice. Facebook's market cap closed 2018 around $376 billion compared to nearly $513 billion the previous year.

Prior to some of the major privacy revelations, Facebook's stock hit its first speed bump of the year in January after announcing changes to its News Feed that would prioritize content from users' friends and family over brands they follow. Facebook's stock plunged 4 percent the day after the announcement after CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned investors to expect engagement to decline slightly as a result of the change.

The stock really began to tumble in March when a whistleblower revealed that U.K.-based political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica collected the data of more than 50 million Facebook users without their permission and used it to target voters for Donald Trump's campaign in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The reports, which would prove to be the first of many privacy stumbles for Facebook, sent the stock crashing 7 percent on March 19, with its market value cratering nearly $36 billion.

Many users, feeling burned by Facebook for failing to protect their data, pledged to delete their accounts. Brian Acton, the co-founder of WhatsApp who joined Facebook by way of acquisition and announced his departure in 2017, tweeted to his 21,000 followers, "It is time. #deletefacebook."

Tweet

Acton's departure from Facebook was followed by 10 more top executives including his own co-founder, Jan Koum. The stock fell almost 1 percent when Koum announced his departure. In September, Instagram's co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger announced that they would leave Facebook, sending the stock down about 0.3 percent the next day.

Facebook's leaders, Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, each testified in front of U.S. Congress in 2018 to explain their missteps and appeal to legislators who may be keen on regulating the social media giant. Facebook shares fell nearly 5 percent on March 27 when reports said Zuckerberg agreed to testify in front of Congress. In September, Sandberg appeared before lawmakers, sending the stock tanking close to 8 percent between Aug. 31, the trading day Sandberg released her opening statements, and Sept. 6, the day after the hearing. Facebook's market value fell by $38 billion over that same period.

Just before Thanskgiving, Facebook was hit with another blow when the New York Times reported that Facebook used a PR firm called Definers to target liberal financier George Soros after suspecting him for funding an anti-Facebook group. After the report came to light, Facebook said it cut ties with Definers. Facebook's share price slid share close to 9 percent from its close on Nov. 14 to its close on Monday following the report.

Zuckerberg has a tradition of making public his New Years Resolutions. In the past, he's chosen to wear a tie every day and to only eat meat that he's killed himself. This year, he took on a more sober challenge in a post on his public Facebook page.

Link

"For 2018, my personal challenge has been to focus on addressing some of the most important issues facing our community -- whether that's preventing election interference, stopping the spread of hate speech and misinformation, making sure people have control of their information, and ensuring our services improve people's well-being. In each of these areas, I'm proud of the progress we've made," Zuckerberg wrote, listing out a number of initiatives the company has taken on to tackle these issues. "I'm committed to continuing to make progress on these important issues as we enter the new year."

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A year ago the FAANG stocks were a hot buy — here's where they stand heading into 2019

At the start of 2018, the so-called FAANG stocks — Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google-parent Alphabet — were top picks.

Four of the five tech stocks had gained roughly 50 percent the year before, excluding only Alphabet, which rose more than 30 percent in 2017. Facebook was on the heels of its best year since 2013, and Apple was having its best year since 2010.

But the tech stalwarts stumbled in 2018, amid widespread calls for regulation and industry privacy scandals. Rocky trade negotiations with China dragged the overall market lower and opened up profit-taking opportunities among the highest-flying, high-valued tech stocks.

Here's where each of the FAANG stocks stands heading into 2019:

Facebook ended the year 25 percent down for 2018, well into bear market territory. The plunge makes for Facebook's worst year of trading, and its only down year since going public in 2012.

The company hemorrhaged market valuation and investor clout as privacy scandals weighed on user metrics and the platform's ad-based business model. Facebook's top executives were grilled by Congress and raked over the coals in public domains.

Facebook will have to face questions from the FTC and ongoing challenges to its user base in 2019, leaving the stock vulnerable to more dips.

Amazon ended 2018 more than 28 percent up, making it one of the better performing FAANG stocks for the year.

The e-commerce giant continued to expand its reach into other industries, delving further into health care and media. It launched new brick-and-mortar stores to ground its retail presence. And it launched a nation-wide search for a second headquarters, ultimately announcing significant economic investments in three new locations outside of Seattle.

Amazon stock took a beating in the fourth quarter of 2018, weighed down by market turmoil and weaker than expected guidance for the holiday season. The stock has shed more than 20 percent since September.

Amazon, like Facebook, has been at the center of calls for regulation. Experts and lawmakers, including President Donald Trump, have called for antitrust reviews of the company. Any significant action on that front in 2019 could hit the stock.

Apple closed almost 7 percent down for 2018, making for the stock's worst year of trading since the 2008 financial crisis. That comes after the stock passed a historic $1 trillion market cap, as the first publicly traded U.S. company to do so.

Apple now trades well below the benchmark, and at a lower valuation than Microsoft.

Apple battled uncertain sales figures and smartphone market saturation, with too little momentum in wearables and home devices to make up the difference. The stock's worst day of trading in 2018 came after its fiscal fourth quarter earnings report, during which Apple announced it would stop reporting individual unit sales and revenue figures for the iPhone and its other biggest product lines.

Apple largely avoided the scandal and regulatory pressure the other FAANG stocks felt during 2018. But its slowing growth, uncertain future and proximity to volatile stocks dragged its value lower — and could continue to do so into 2019.

Netflix outperformed its FAANG peers in 2018, gaining nearly 40 percent during the year.

The company upped its original programming spend to fend off competitors like Hulu, Amazon, HBO and the soon-to-launch Disney+ streaming service. Netflix saw success with more original TV shows and movies, across more countries, than in past years, and announced notable content partnerships.

The company continues to burn through cash, though, which could hang over the stock in 2019.

Alphabet ended the year practically flat, down just under 1 percent in 2018.

The company suffered its own privacy and content moderation reckoning, though arguably to a lesser degree than Facebook's, and defended its business practices before Congress. Google also faced backlash from its own employees around the company's handling of misconduct and discrimination and answered to EU antitrust regulators to the tune of several billion dollars in fines.

Despite all of that, the company's ad revenue continued to grow and its "Other Bets" like self-driving car company Waymo made notable strides.

A minimal loss for the year, alongside painful losses among other FAANGs, could bode well for Google going into 2019.

WATCH: Tech had a rocky 2018. Here's what 2019 might look like.

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Why 2019 could be very good for stocks, after worst year in a decade

There's a good chance that what ailed the market in 2018 could reverse sometime in 2019, providing strong tailwinds for stocks, some strategists said.

After the worst December since 1931 and the worst year since the financial crisis, stocks enter 2019 tentatively but still susceptible to the volatility that resulted in historic intraday swings in late December. The S&P 500, trading at about 2,495, is down 6.6 percent for the year, and down 9.6 percent in December alone.

In the final quarter of 2018, the market fell on concerns that economic growth and profit growth are slowing down, and Fed rate hikes and trade wars would only accelerate the deceleration. But most Wall Street strategists in a CNBC survey maintain a rosy view for the bull market, and see it extending its run for another year, for an average year-end target of 3,000 — a 20 percent gain.

"Based on fundamentals, I don't think the pullback we had in this market was ever justified. Markets will do what they'll do. I think you have significant upside here. Therefore, we would think that the bottom has been put in this market," said Jonathan Golub, chief U.S. equities strategist at Credit Suisse. One positive is that the forward price to earnings ratio has fallen below 15 percent from 18.4 at the start of 2018. Golub's S&P 500 target is 2,925 for 2019.

But while recent up days have been encouraging, some strategists say the market could stay volatile and swing in both directions as it works to form a bottom around the lows of last week.

Ed Keon, chief investment strategist and fund manager at QMA, is clearly feeling better about the market but says it continues to have big risks, and he expects earnings growth to be flat in 2019, compared to Wall Street expectations of about 7 to 8 percent growth.

Keon said December was one of his most actively traded months, after he decided Dec. 3 to sell some stocks following President Donald Trump's meeting with China President Xi. He then proceeded to sell on every rally until last week, when he began to buy much stocks at a much cheaper valuation.

"It was a very active month. We don't usually do a tremendous amount of trading in the course of a month. We're still kind of cautious. We did buy aggressively last week," Keon said.

The stock market has been fearful of the Federal Reserve's rate hiking agenda, but in the futures market, there is not a single hike in the federal funds rate priced in for next year. For 2020, the market is figuring there's a higher chance for a rate cut than a hike.

The Fed's December forecasts showed two rate hikes expected for next year. But what really spooked the market was Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's comment that the Fed would continue to allow securities to roll off its balance sheet as they mature, thereby shrinking the balance sheet. Some market pros believe the Fed program is removing liquidity from the market and that could indirectly impact stocks as the European Central Bank also ends its asset purchases.

"In 2018, we were facing a Fed that was tightening monetary conditions. Next year, the Fed will probably be finished raising rates. What the market is struggling with is it's a Fed that says one thing. Then if you look at inflation, which has gotten weaker, the market is basically saying the Fed is kind of done now," said Golub. "The Fed is signalling something that is out of sync with the market.That's what the market is struggling with...The market believes the Fed is going to be done in 2019. That s a huge positive over 2018."

Economists expect inflation comparisons should weaken, given the near 40 percent decline in oil prices in the fourth quarter.

"We started the year [in 2018] with a very expensive market, and this year we're going in with an inexpensive markets. We may be setting ourselves up for a big upside surprise," said Golub.

Markets are watching Friday's panel with Powell and former Fed chairs Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke for clues on policy moves regarding both the balance sheet and rates. But the forum at an economists conference may result in little news, and next week's Fed minutes from the last meeting could be more informative, some traders say.

As for trade, President Trump tweeted some encouraging developments over the weekend, though it's unclear how much progress is being made. There is a March 1 deadline on a trade deal, or Trump has said he would resume putting tariffs on China.

if we were to reach a lasting fair and equitable peace on the trade war front that would be good news," said Keon, noting it would be a positive catalyst for the market.

"It's such a wild card," said Golub.

But there is skepticism around a deal being made in time to head off further tariffs. Goldman Sachs economists, for instance, lowered their growth forecasts to 2 percent for the first half of the year, and noted that more tariffs are likely.

"I think the market needs to come to an understanding that this thing is going to take some time.," said Golub. "In the short term it isn't the best thing. If we get this right and the long term trade relationship between teh U.S. and China is in a bettter place that' not a bad thing for markets."

Golub said he's not concerned about slower earnings growth at this point, after 2018's more than 20 percent growth.

"The fact you're comparing it to this year's stellar earnings growth, juiced by tax changes is not a fair comparison. The growth will be slower, but it's not going to be a problem," he said. "I would expect managements are going to be very hedged and cautious in their language when upcoming reports come out. I think there's going to be a disparity between the numbers that are going to be just fine and rhetoric which is going to be cautious.To the extent the market will get caught up in the rhetoric, it will create a buying opportunity."

With expectations for slower economic reports, data will also become more important to the market, including reports like Friday's jobs report. Economists expect growth to slide below 2 percent in the second half of the year, but they do not expect a recession.

So far, the shutdown of the government has added to negative sentiment but it is not seen as a big factor for the economy or markets.

Another positive has been the decline in Treasury yields which have fallen as stocks sold off. Yields move opposite price.

The 10-year yield, which influences mortgages and other loans, has fallen below 2.70 percent, after trading as high as 3.25 percent this year.

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A reason for hope: Back-to-back down years for the stock market are rare

Worried about a down year in 2019? It's statistically unlikely.

2018 is ending on a downer, with the S&P 500 down six percent (down four percent when dividends are included) for its first real down year since 2008 (the S&P was down 0.7 percent in 2015 on a price basis, but on a total return basis —including dividends — was up 1.4 percent).

Could 2019 see a second down year in a row? It's certainly possible — a 10-year win streak would argue for some kind of mean reversion — but even so, consecutive down years in the S&P 500 are remarkably rare.

The last time the S&P was down two or more consecutive years on a total return basis (including dividends) was way back in 2000 to 2003, when it was down three consecutive years, according to data from the Stern School at NYU.

But that is rare: there have only been four instances since 1929 when the S&P declined two or more years in a row.

In the worst case, the S&P was down four consecutive years, from 1929 to 1932.

The S&P was down three consecutive years twice: 1939 to 1941, and 2000 to 2002.

It was down two consecutive years only once: 1973 and 1974.

Think about that: for all the worry about down markets, the S&P has dropped two consecutive years or more only four times since 1929. That's pretty remarkable.

All other down years were one-offs (there were 12 of them), and the market was higher in the next year.

There's something else to note about the consecutive down years: they follow big economic events, wars or big geopolitical conflicts.

The Great Depression: 1929 to 1932 declines.

Wars: World War II (1939-1941), Afghanistan/Iraq post 9-11 (2000-2002)

Geopolitical Events: Israel/Saudi oil embargo (1973-74).

"If one wants to be bearish on 2019, geopolitical issues are the only historically accurate argument," Nicholas Colas from DataTrek tells me.

Unfortunately, there are no shortage of those for 2019. Traders are grappling with: 1) Central banks removing the stimulus of low rates, 2) a tariff war that has not been resolved, and 3) the prospect of China slowing down, with or without tariffs.

And while "political risk" is not a risk we have seen so far as a factor in consecutive down years, it could possibly mix with those other concerns to produce a toxic stew for earnings.

It's the presence of these risks that should make students of market history hesitant to confidently declare 2019 will not be a down year.

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Bill Gates asked himself these questions at the close of 2018

For many, the new year is a time for reflecting on the past as well as looking toward the future. Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates recently sat down to take stock of his personal and work life in a tradition he calls an "end-of-year assessment."

"Some people think it is corny, but I like the tradition," writes Gates in a blog posted Saturday. For his 2018 reflection, Gates began by asking himself, "What was I excited about?" and "What could I have done better?"

Gates' end-of-year assessment tradition dates back to his childhood. As a kid, his parents would send out Christmas cards with a rundown on what his family was up to. One card, for example, had updates such as, "Dad's law firm is growing, Mom's volunteer work is going strong, the girls are doing well in school, Bill is a handful," recalls Gates.

This year, Gates shared his optimism for getting closer to eradicating polio and his delight at seeing solar and wind energy becoming cheaper, but he admitted that he'd "underestimated how hard it would be to vaccinate children" in war-torn areas and noted that he wants to "speak out more about how the U.S. needs to regain its leading role in nuclear power research."

Science supports performing similar check-ins with yourself. One study shows that people who make time for self-reflection are happier, more productive and less burned out than people who don't. Psychologists also highlight how self-reflection can help push you toward a purposeful change, help you reach your goals and trigger self-awareness.

Gates also notes how different his assessment looks today, at 63, than it was in his 20s, in his first days of building up Microsoft.

"Back then, an end-of-year assessment would amount to just one question: Is Microsoft software making the personal-computing dream come true?" writes Gates.

Today, with the inspiration of his wife Melinda and friend Warren Buffett, Gates now asks other questions about his life such as, "Did I devote enough time to my family?" "Did I learn enough new things?" and "Did I develop new friendships and deepen old ones?" he writes.

"These would have been laughable to me when I was 25, but as I get older, they are much more meaningful," writes Gates.

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Why this year suddenly fell apart on Wall Street, and what's ahead

Everything was going right for the stock market until Oct. 3rd. Then everything went wrong.

Up to that point, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had been up about 8 percent for the year — a solid gain if not quite as gaudy as the year before.

More importantly, the fundamental backdrop was solid: The economy was growing at a better than 3 percent clip, corporate profits were around their highest levels in eight years and the Federal Reserve seemed in control of monetary policy and interest rates.

The market traded flat that day, with little indication that there was anything that should disrupt the powerful bull run into the end of the year.

Then, it happened.

In a seemingly off-the-cuff remark in a PBS interview, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said interest rates were "a long way" from what he considered neither stimulative nor restrictive — the central bank's Holy Grail of "neutral" where it could stay put over at least the medium term.

The comment garnered headlines but didn't seem to generate an inordinate amount of attention.

The Dow dropped about 157 points the next day — a notable decline but not particularly scary for a bluechip average that was knocking on the door of 27,000.

But then the next day it fell some more. And then some more. And then still more.

Ultimately, the index very briefly edged into bear market territory — a 20 percent drop. More importantly, the market's worst fear was exposed, namely that a Fed that had been so generous in underpinning the bull market with scads of liquidity and low interest rates was now ready to change direction.

As the days and weeks progressed, Wall Street suddenly had a new reality to face: A market that seemed bulletproof was now susceptible to a whole range of worries. Gains that had been taken for granted over the course of the last nine years were in jeopardy. A wobbly economy, an uncertain future with interest rates and a president who wouldn't stop talking about the stock market posed grave dangers.

While the Powell statement in itself was enough to set off a minor tidal wave in selling, it released a cascade of other concerns that investors had heretofore ignored and couldn't be overcome even after the Fed chief tried to walk back the "long way" from neutral gaffe. Suddenly, the U.S.-China trade battle, of which Wall Street had largely taken the optimistic view i.e. that it would be settled with little global disruption, suddenly seemed an existential danger. Ditto for the global slowdown, a messy Brexit and the general chaos that had pervaded Washington since President Donald Trump's election.

For his part, Trump didn't help.

As Wall Street wobbled, the president turned up the heat on Powell and his colleagues. Intensifying criticism that had begun earlier in the year, Trump wondered aloud whether he had made the right choice in replacing former Fed Chair Janet Yellen with Powell and said over and over again that the Fed's rate hikes were the biggest threat to the U.S. economy.

He went so far as to take on the Fed on Christmas Eve during a violent sell-off:

tweet

Trump's strategy tying the stock market's performance to the economy under his watch had always been a risky one, and with a potential bear market looming it became even riskier.

And it seemed the more he talked about the market, the worse things got, and investors continued to worry where the bottom would come.

Still, there's reason for optimism.

The economy remains strong, despite a Wall Street consensus that the pace of growth will slow. Unemployment is holding around a 50-year low and job growth continues apace, despite persistent conventional wisdom that there's not much more room to expand and a worsening in labor conditions also could be in the cards.

Corporate profits, after growing just north of 20 percent for 2018, probably will slow as well, though an earnings recession seems nearly as unlikely as a conventional economic one. FactSet estimates earnings will grow 8 percent for all of 2019, a substantial decline but still a move forward. Consumer and business sentiment has declined but is still well above historical norms.

Moreover, there's not a single strategist of the major Wall Street firms who thinks the market will finish 2019 lower than it started.

And even the Fed issues could fade from view. Current futures pricing anticipates zero rate hikes, and the central bank historically has been loathe to surprise the market, even though Fed officials currently project two increases before 2019 closes.

"With the last Fed decision of the year behind us and the market having gone through a dramatic pullback since, we believe that barring an appearance of a 'black swan' event, or the shock of a bolt from the blue, the worst of the declines experienced by stocks in 2018 are behind us," John Stoltzfus, chief market strategist at Oppenheimer, said in a note.

Echoing the White House position, as expressed through Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Stoltzfus blamed programmed trading and "technical factors" rather than "a deterioration in economic and corporate fundamentals" as the reason for the fourth-quarter selling.

In the big picture, Stoltzfus expects the S&P 500 to end 2019 at 2,960. The good news is that represents a 19 percent jump from Friday's close. The bad news is it's a hair below the year-end 3,000 target he had for the large-cap index at the start of 2018.

"We believe investors should view this as an opportunity to gain equity exposure at attractive valuations to market segments that appear oversold," he said.

Indeed, investors can take some solace in that the year ended with a mild Santa Claus rally on Wall Street, albeit under volatile conditions.

The gains bought the major averages up more than 6 percent piece following the disastrous Christmas Eve dive. However, Stoltzfus, like many of his Wall Street colleagues, believes the market in 2019 will endure some more pain and volatility before finally straightening out and climbing higher.

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The stock market's epic fourth-quarter reversal is one for the history books

This volatile market year was full of historical milestones and the end of the year will be no different for a key stock index.

For the first time ever, the S&P 500 will end the year with a loss after being positive for the first three quarters. The benchmark index was up 9 percent through the first three quarters of the year. Then the October sell-off began. The S&P 500 fell 7 percent in October and accelerated those losses this month, in what is likely to be the index's worst December performance since the Great Depression.

Read More: Here are the best and worst performing stocks of this tough and volatile year for the market

The S&P 500 is set to end 2018 down nearly 7 percent. The fourth-quarter sell off flies in the face of history, as the last three months are typically the strongest time of the year for the markets.

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3 predictions for the future, according to billionaire tech titan Elon Musk

"I think it's important to have a future that is inspiring and appealing. I just think there have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Like, why do you want to live? What's the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future?" so says billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk in his 2017 TED talk.

For Musk, that means building a reality where humans live on multiple planets. "And if we're not out there, if the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multiplanet species, I find that it's incredibly depressing if that's not the future that we're going to have," Musk says.

And when Musk thinks about the future, he does so like an engineer — practically, carefully and with a flow chart of probable outcomes.

"I look at the future from the standpoint of probabilities. It's like a branching stream of probabilities, and there are actions that we can take that affect those probabilities or that accelerate one thing or slow down another thing," he says.

Indeed, with his electric car company Tesla, his spacecraft company SpaceX and his tunneling venture The Boring Company, the tech entrepreneur is says he's helping shape the future.

As everyone looks toward 2019, here are three predictions for the future from the entrepreneur.

In November, Musk said it will be seven to 10 years until the first group of humans colonize Mars.

7 to 10 years

In the same Twitter conversation, he said he imagines it will be "engineers, artists and creatives of all kinds" who will go to Mars first.

Engineers, artists & creators of all kinds. There is so much to build.

The SpaceX founder and CEO said there is a "70 percent" chance that he himself will go to Mars, and that his space company "recently made a number of breakthroughs that I am just really fired up about," he told Axios in November.

It will be incredibly risky for those who go first to Mars, Musk said.

"It's gonna be hard, there's a good chance of death, going in a little can through deep space, you might land successfully, once you land successfully you'll be working non-stop to build the base — so not much time for leisure — and once you get there, even after all this, there's a very harsh environment, so there's a good chance you'll die there. We think you can come back but we're not sure," Musk told Axios.

SpaceX aims to get an unmanned cargo rocket to Mars in 2024, according to Musk. "Hopefully, there are people on board. But I think there's a pretty good chance of at least having an unmanned craft go to Mars. I think we will try to do this," Musk told Kara Swisher in October.

As if Tesla, SpaceX and The Boring Company weren't enough to keep Musk busy, he also has a company, Neuralink, that is "developing ultra high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and computers," as the company's website explains.

"The long-term aspiration with Neuralink would be to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence…to achieve a sort of democratization of intelligence, such that it is not monopolistically held in a purely digital form by governments and large corporations," Musk told Axios in November.

That will be done by connecting computer electrodes to neurons in your brain — "a chip and a bunch of tiny wires" that will be "implanted in your skull," Musk said.

"I believe this can be done. ... It's probably on the order of a decade," he said.

If the idea of your intelligence being enhanced by computers seems wild, Musk says it's starting now: "And by the way, you kind of have this already in a weird way: You have a digital tertiary layer in the form of your phone, your computers, your watch. You basically have these computing devices that form a tertiary layer on your cognition already," Musk said, according to Axios.

Musk has been pulling an insane schedule, working as many as 120 hours in a week, to get the Model 3 Tesla production ramped up, but he's already touting new products.

"I'm dying to make a pickup truck so bad … we might have a prototype to unveil next year," he tweeted in December.

I'm dying to make a pickup truck so bad … we might have a prototype to unveil next year

Musk has been relatively vague about the specifics of the truck — "Well I can't talk about the details," he told Swisher — but he was unabashed in expressing his own excitement.

"We've got the pickup truck, which — actually, I'm personally most excited about the pickup truck," Musk told Swisher in October. "It's gonna be like a really futuristic like cyberpunk, 'Blade Runner' pickup truck."

He continued: "It's gonna be awesome, it's gonna be amazing. … This will be heart-stopping. It stops my heart. It's like, oh, it's great."

The Tesla boss says he isn't particularly confident that there will be a large number of people who want to buy the first, ultra-futuristic version of the truck he has been dreaming about. If his design is not popular, then Tesla will make a more traditional truck body, he says.

"It's like I really wanted something that's like super-futuristic cyberpunk. Which, if it doesn't ... if I'm weirdly like ... if there's only a small number of people that like that truck, I guess we'll make a more conventional truck in the future. But it's the thing that I am personally most fired up about. It's gonna have a lot of titanium," Musk told Swisher.

See also:

Elon Musk: 'Robots will be able to do everything better than us'

Ahead of Elon Musk, this self-made millionaire already launched a company to merge your brain with computers

Elon Musk: This is why I push myself to the brink

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This wacky daily trading strategy posted a 13% return in this rough year

Buy the S&P 500 at the close every day and sell it at the next open. Sounds wacky? You could have outperformed the market by 20 percent.

According to Bespoke Investment Group, if one had implemented this so-called after hours strategy every day in 2018, it could've posted a 13.3 percent return.

"This has really been an intraday bear market, with more than 100 percent of the selling coming during regular trading hours. Since SPY's peak on Sep. 20, you'd still be up 3.3 percent if you only owned outside of regular trading hours!" said a team of analysts at Bespoke in a note on Monday.

If one had bought the S&P 500 at the open every day and sold at the close, they would've lost 20.4 percent.

Intraday selling has been prominent especially in the fourth quarter as big investors rushed out of the market and tax loss selling intensified at the year end. It has been otherwise tough to reap a profit in the stock market this year as the S&P 500 has lost more than 7 percent on trade disputes and slowing economic growth.

However, this trading strategy doesn't entail any fundamental backing so it is likely impossible to predict whether it would keep working in the new year. In addition, it does not account for trading costs, which could add up with excessive buying and selling every day.

But in theory, it was a rare strategy that worked in 2018.

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Here are the best and worst performing stocks of this tough and volatile year for the market

2018 is coming to a close on Monday, ending a tough year for stock pickers. Many of the year's big winners took a beating in the final quarter of the year.

The S&P 500 is set to end the year down nearly 6 percent. Stocks lost much of this year's gains beginning in early October before accelerating this month, in what is likely to be the worst December performance for the S&P 500 since 1931.

Here's where the best and worst S&P 500 stocks were before the final day of trading this year. Stocks are ranked by year to date performance, with quarter to date performance included for context on the recent widespread sell-off.

Advanced Micro Devices ripped higher by more than 85 percent until mid-September, peaking at $34.14 a share. AMD was riding high on gains in the computer chip market until the company gave a weaker-than-expected outlook for the fourth quarter of this year.

TripAdvisor and Red Hat were the only two 2018 winners to also buck the recent trend, gaining 4.9 percent and 28.1 percent this quarter, respectively. TripAdvisor reported consistently improving earnings throughout the year, boosted by its growing non-hotel business. IBM announced plans in October to acquire Red Hat in cash at $190 a share, a 60 percent premium from Red Hat's stock price when the deal was revealed.

Chipotle Mexican Grill is set for its best year since 2013, with recently appointed CEO Brian Niccol's turnaround plan welcomed by investors.

Cosmetics giant Coty is on pace to be this year's worst performer, cratering more than 67 percent. The stock has sold off nearly ever month of 2018. Coty replaced both its chief executive and chairman in November, as the company has struggled to fine benefit from the 41 brands it acquired from Procter & Gamble in 2016.

General Electric is set to finish a tumultuous year down over 57 percent. This year, GE revealed federal investigations into its accounting practices, was kicked off the Dow index, replaced its CEO with outsider Larry Culp, split up its struggling power business, slashed its long-beloved dividend to a token amount and is fighting to keep its bonds from becoming junk-rated. But the stock has rebounded since touching $6.66, the lowest close of the financial crisis. Two widely-followed Wall Street analysts upgraded GE's stock in December, pointing to opportunity amid the company's

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Tech's 'FAANG' stocks need to be 'unified and consistent' for market to go higher, says Art Cashin

The stock market needs the so-called FAANG stocks to be "unified and consistent" for it to head higher into the new year, veteran trader Art Cashin told CNBC on Monday.

FAANG stands for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google parent company Alphabet. The group, which led the market higher earlier this year, helped pull equities down during the recent sell-offs. FAANG stocks snapped their losing streak in last week's market rally.

"You want to see if they can all demonstrate unified strength," the UBS director of floor operations at the New York Stock Exchange said on "Squawk on the Street."

During the November rout, FAANG stocks lost a combined $1 trillion in value, with Facebook, Apple and Amazon taking the bulk of the hit. The free fall led some, like Bleakley Advisory Group's Peter Boockvar, to declare the FAANG trade "dead."

"Each of these stocks, going forward, are going to trade on their own footing and not as a group," Boockvar told CNBC. However, Cashin argued the group needs to emerge in leadership, pointing to the fact that there are not many other groups that can take up that mantle.

"If they don't trade together again then we are going to have more volatility creep into the market," he predicted.

He's also looking for signals on the market's direction in mid-January.

"There's supposedly a lot of money out there," Cashin said, noting that people are waiting to get past the first two weeks of the month to make sure there is no residual tax selling.

"I would pick somewhere around Jan. 15 and say let's see if we get a second leg up here in the market," he said.

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Ring in 2019 with these 6 basic financial resolutions for retirement

Saving more for retirement is a common New Year's resolution. This year, the pledge comes in at the number five resolution in Principal Financial Group's annual survey of 1,008 American consumers wishes for next year, with 21 percent of respondents stating a desire to sock away more for their golden years.

"The new year is a chance for new opportunities and a clean slate," said Jerry Patterson, senior vice president of retirement and income solutions at Principal, in a statement. "The challenge will be taking those good intentions and making them last into February and beyond."

Many financial experts advise upping your retirement savings rates past your company match (typically somewhere around 5 percent of salary) to double-digits, to 15 percent of pay or more. The more you save, the earlier, the greater your account balance come retirement, thanks to the power of compound interest. Beyond simply saving more, here's a look, in broad strokes, at several other — out of a legion of possible — retirement-related resolutions you might consider making for 2019.

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Warren Buffett says this is his measure of success — and it helped Bill Gates in 2018

Warren Buffett is best known as a wildly successful investor and one of the top three richest people in the world. Yet the billionaire doesn't use money as a measure of prosperity. For Buffett, the important metric is the relationships in his life — and his friend Bill Gates is taking notes.

According to Gates, Buffett's measure of success comes down to one question: "Do the people you care about love you back?"

In a blog posted Saturday, Gates says Buffett has helped broaden the way he thinks about his accomplishments.

Every year, Gates puts together his own end-of-year assessment, taking stock of his work and personal life. Thanks to Buffett, as well as Gates' his wife Melinda, he says his assessment is very different than it was in his 20s, when he was first launching Microsoft.

"Back then, an end-of-year assessment would amount to just one question: Is Microsoft software making the personal-computing dream come true?" writes Gates.

Today, though he still assesses the quality of his work, Buffett and Melinda have inspired him to ask other questions about his life such as, "Did I devote enough time to my family?" "Did I learn enough new things?" and "Did I develop new friendships and deepen old ones?" Gates writes.

"These would have been laughable to me when I was 25, but as I get older, they are much more meaningful," writes Gates.

For years, Gates has used Buffett's definition of success in his own life. "Warren Buffett has always said the measure is whether the people close to you are happy and love you," wrote Gates during a 2017 Reddit Ask Me Anything session.

Measuring success Buffett's way, writes Gates on his blog, "is about as good a metric as you will find."

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Apple is going to end 2018 with a rare product launch miss

Apple never launched AirPower, a product it said would arrive in 2018.

If you're not familiar, Apple announced a product called "AirPower" that was supposed to let iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods owners wirelessly charge all three devices at the same time at its Sept. 2017 iPhone event. Apple said it would launch in 2018, but it never did.

It's a rare miss for Apple, which typically has a good track record of following through on product announcements.

During each of its events this year, including one in March where it announced new iPads, its developer conference in June, the annual iPhone event in September and a Mac event in October, Apple failed to mention AirPower or its status.

CNBC even tried asking Apple at the iPhone launch this September if it planned to talk about AirPower publicly, but a representative only said that the day's events were only focused on the products discussed on stage — the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR — and not other devices.

Mysteriously, Apple began pulling all mention of AirPower from its website after the Sept. 2018 iPhone event. Around that time, plugged-in Apple writer John Gruber, suggested that AirPower was facing overheating problems and may have been "scrubbed." That means AirPower was getting too hot while trying to charge three devices at the same time.

"There are engineers who looked at AirPower's design and said it could never work, thermally. ... I think they've either had to go completely back to the drawing board and start over with an entirely different design, or they've decided to give up and they just don't want to say so," Gruber said at the time.

AirPower would have been promising for people who buy lots of Apple products. Instead of needing to plug in an iPhone, an Apple Watch and AirPods, all three could just be dropped onto a pad and charged wirelessly. For AirPods, Apple would have needed to launch a new wireless charging case, which still may be included in an updated model in the future.

Apple has been open about pushing for wireless accessories in recent years. The company removed the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 in 2016, as it started promoting its wireless earbuds, AirPods. The company added wireless charging to its new iPhone models the following year.

At this point, it seems likely AirPower has been canceled or indefinitely delayed. An Apple spokesperson was not immediately available to comment.

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Oil prices are set for their worst year since 2015 — here's what went wrong

In a year when Wall Street predicted oil would surpass $100 for the first time in four years, the oil market instead experienced its worst annual loss since 2015.

The oil market's sudden-about face in the fourth quarter has ended a 2½-year recovery for oil prices following the 2014-2016 downturn. Analysts expect oil prices to rebound next year, but the geopolitical risks that have weighed on the market throughout 2018 will remain a big variable in the New Year.

U.S. crude is trading around $45 a barrel, on pace to end the year down 25 percent. At $53 a barrel, international benchmark Brent crude is down about 21 percent in 2018. The declines mark the first annual loss and the biggest yearly drop since 2015, when both contracts fell more than 30 percent.

Just three months ago, oil was trading at nearly four-year highs. While many analysts said the rally was unwarranted and warned a pullback was in the cards, few predicted the market would sell off so sharply. From peak to trough, U.S. crude has shed nearly half its value.

With the benefit of hindsight, it's fairly easy to explain oil's plunge into a bear market.

In May, the Trump administration restored sanctions on Iran, OPEC's third biggest producer, raising concerns about a supply squeeze in the oil market. The following month, OPEC and a group of producers led by Russia abandoned their 2016 agreement to restrict supply. At the urging of Trump and oil customers, Saudi Arabia in particular turned on the taps, adding about 1 million barrels per day to the market between June and November.

But by October, forecasters were warning that demand for oil would grow more slowly than previously anticipated. The same month, the stock market plunged, hammered by a sell-off in high-flying technology equities, the ongoing U.S.-China trade dispute and rising interest rates.

Investors began dumping risk assets, and by the end of the month, oil had plunged about $11 a barrel from its Oct. 3 high. Momentum trading and the rotation out of slumping crude futures and into rising natural gas contracts also deepened losses for oil, analysts say.

Making matters worse, when the sanctions officially snapped back into place on Iran on Nov. 5, President Donald Trump surprised the market by granting generous exemptions to the Islamic Republic's biggest customers. That meant Saudi Arabia, Russia and several other producers had been hiking output into a market where demand growth was moderating and fewer Iranian barrels than expected were lost.

At year end, the U.S.-China trade dispute remains unresolved, and the market remains concerned that a full-blown trade war between the world's two biggest economies will dent fuel demand. Meanwhile, American crude output is growing more quickly than expected, with the United States topping Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world's biggest producer in the second half of 2018.

However, many U.S. producers need oil prices in the $50-$55 range to break even on the cost of new wells, which is forcing some energy companies to tap the breaks, said Neal Dingmann, oil equity analyst at Suntrust Robinson Humphrey.

"I always say the cure for low prices in the U.S. is low prices," Dingmann told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Monday. "You're already starting to see a number of U.S. producers starting to back off. We've heard about three or four of the mid-cap companies decide that."

"There's even talk here around Texas in Midland about some of those places starting to at least soften a little bit," he said, referring to the nation's hottest shale oil region.

That could lead to a gradual reduction in U.S. production in the first or second quarter, says Dingmann. That would help OPEC to balance the market in 2019. This month, the 14-nation producer group and its allies reversed course once again and agreed to cut production by 1.2 million bpd.

Wall Street generally sees Brent bubbling back up to roughly $70 a barrel and WTI bouncing above $60. However, there are several key risks that could keep prices volatile, including U.S.-China trade tensions and the expiration of Trump's Iran sanctions waivers around the start of May.

With the political environment still impacting crude futures, it could be more difficult for the oil market to reach equilibrium and investors will have to prepare for more volatility, according to Dingmann.

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Trump's most memorable Twitter bombshells of 2018

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The Twitter Inc. account of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDoanldTrump

President Donald Trump's Twitter habit grew even more prolific in 2018.

Trump sent more than 3,400 tweets this year — an average of nearly 10 tweets a day, and a sizable increase from the president's first year in office, according to data collected by the Trump Twitter Archive and reviewed by CNBC.

And despite the seemingly constant din of news bombshells breaking around his White House this year, Trump became even more reliant on Twitter as the primary means of communication for both his administration and himself.

White House press briefings, which nearly disappeared in the second half of 2018, have been largely supplanted by salvos of 280 characters or less, launched most mornings from Trump's official account. In the past six months, Trump's tweet-rate ramped up even more, to an average of nearly 12 per day from 8 per day in the first half.

That inflated volume hasn't diluted the president's penchant for hurling invective toward his detractors and political adversaries, however.

Through his tweets — which the Justice Department treats as official presidential statements — Trump criticized foreign leaders such as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, calling the former "weak" and the latter "short and fat"; repeatedly vented rage against the probe of Russian election meddling and possible collusion helmed by special counsel Robert Mueller; excoriated critics of his trade and immigration policies; and even lashed out at officials serving in his own administration.

The president's tweets have affected U.S. lawmakers, global alliances and the stock market. Here are 10 of Trump's most explosive tweets in 2018:

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