The stock markets in New York are expected to open lower on Friday. Sentiment on Wall Street is under pressure from the announcement of new Chinese taxes on US $ 75 billion of US goods, including cars, crude oil and soybeans. They are also looking forward to the meeting of central bankers in Jackson Hole, US, where President Jerome Powell of the Federal Reserve will give a speech.

China’s new levies are retaliation for US import tariffs on 300 billion dollars worth of Chinese-made products. The flaring up of the trade war between the two major economies is putting renewed pressure on companies that are sensitive to trading feats such as chip funds, but also automakers such as Tesla, General Motors (GM) and Ford Motor and companies such as Apple, Boeing and Caterpillar.

Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole in the state of Wyoming is on the agenda for 4:00 p.m. (CET) and will be closely studied for clues about future Fed policies. On the financial markets, the US central bank is expected to lower interest rates again in September.

Attention should be paid to sports store chain Foot Locker, which came up with disappointing results. The Foot Locker share is firmly in the red beforehand. Cloud software company Salesforce expects a higher opening, thanks to better results and outlook.

In addition, computer and printer manufacturer HP Inc. in the spotlight, after the publication of figures and the announcement that CEO is leaving. The price of HP Inc. seems to start with big minuses.

There is also takeover news. Toy manufacturer Hasbro, for example, announced that it would take over the Canadian Entertainment One (eOne) for 4 billion dollars. That company is best known as the owner of the popular children’s series Peppa the Pig. In addition, it was announced that cloud service provider VMware is making two acquisitions with a total value of 4.8 billion dollars.

In terms of macroeconomic news, it is fairly calm. Shortly after opening, data will be available on the sale of new homes in the United States.

The markets in New York ended on Thursday with small results. The Dow-Jones index closed with a gain of 0.2 percent on 26,252.24 points. The broad S&P 500 fell 0.1 percent to 2922.95 points. The Nasdaq tech exchange recorded a minus of 0.4 percent on 7991.39 points.