US stocks continue to be weighed down by trade war concerns

Major US equity indices opened lower at the start of a new trading week and extended the recent weakness led by concerns about a potential global trade war.

The US President Donald Trump last week announced tariffs on imported steel and aluminium, which spooked investors and has been one of the key factors behind the recent selling around equity markets. 

Also weighing on investors sentiment was the outcome of Sunday's Italian elections, wherein populist euroskeptic parties made a better showing than forecast. The negative factor, to some extent, was negated by the news that Germany's SPD members voted for a coalition deal with Angela Merkel’s conservatives to end months of uncertainty. 

With markets still suffering from the recent hawkish rhetoric by the new Fed Chair Jerome Powell, which fueled speculations that the US central bank might opt for a faster monetary policy tightening cycle, Trump's harsh trade tariff is now causing another leg of downfall in the market. 

During the opening hour of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost around 100-points to 24,450 and the broader S&P 500 Index was down nearly 10-points to 2,682. Meanwhile, tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index slipped over 25-points and was last seen near 7,230 level.