Major US equity indices opened in red on Friday as investors preferred to stay on the sidelines amid mounting global trade tensions.
Investors continue to pay attention to any fresh trade-related developments, especially after the public comment period for the proposed new US tariffs on an additional $200 billion worth of Chinese imports ended on Thursday.
Global trade war fears escalated further on Thursday after the US President Donald Trump hinted to a Wall Street Journal columnist that he might next take up trade issues with Japan. This against the backdrop of ongoing trade-talks between the US and Canada held investors from placing any aggressive bets.
Meanwhile, today’s upbeat US monthly employment report, showing that wages grew at their fastest pace since 2009, cemented September Fed rate hike expectations, with a further increase in December, and further collaborated towards denting sentiment around alternative asset class – like equities.
Other details showed that the economy added 201K new jobs in August, much better than a downwardly revised figure of 147K in July, while the unemployment rate held steady at 3.9% as against market expectations for a downtick to 3.8%.
At the time of writing this report, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down around 75-points to 25,922 and the broader S&P 500 Index slipped nearly 5-points to 2,873. Meanwhile, tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index turned out to be an outperformer and held with modest gains of around 5-points to 7,929.
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