China hit back quickly on Wednesday against the Trump administration's plans to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods.
The country has retaliated with a list of similar duties on key U.S. imports including soybeans, planes, cars, beef and chemicals.
'Deleterious Effects'
Commenting on the unfolding situation, Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Cresset Wealth in Chicago, said, "Tariffs by themselves and an escalating trade war would certainly have deleterious effects on just about everything. Stripping it away, at least we are not in a frothy market situation, something where there is some vulnerability there. There are going to be a lot of companies not affected by tariffs, probably, and those earnings are going to be pretty good.
"Obviously we need kind of a quiet period on these headlines and we need to focus on what is ultimately important and that is earnings. So I am hopeful over the next couple of weeks that earnings will be that shiny object that everyone can focus on.”
Caution
Elsewhere, Adam Sarhan, chief executive of 50 Park Investments in New York said that the market is currently erring on the side of caution.
"The level of uncertainty has definitely surged. When you see China retaliate stronger than the U.S. that's a very strong signal that they mean business," he said.
"Everybody knew they were going to retaliate. The question was how strong of a retaliation."
News by Reuters, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
