THE exchange of trade blows by China and the US over the weekend will undoubtedly set the tone for Asian trading in the last week of August, a month already shaping up as one to forget for equities.

As Oanda's Asia-Pacific senior market analyst Jeffery Halley noted, attention had been squarely on US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell's speech at Jackson Hole at last Friday's session in Asia.

But in a move probably timed for impact, China imposed additional tariffs on US$75 billion of American goods including soya beans, cars and oil prior to Friday's US session.