US-China trade bout sets the tone for the week

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.