| Wall Street finished Thursday in the red as investors mulled over escalating trade tensions between the US and China and Donald Trump's latest legal woes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the session down 0.3% at 25,656.98, the S&P 500 was off 0.17% at 2,856.98, and the Nasdaq 100 was 0.14% lower at 7,413.84. “It has taken the latest trade war twist - not to mention Trump's Cohen/Manafort headache - in its stride, though those concerns have perhaps reduced investors' appetite to send the Dow much higher,” said SpreadEx's Connor Campbell of the Dow’s performance earlier. Trade tensions were still very much in focus as the US and China implemented 25% tariffs on $16bn-worth of each other's goods, with talks between the two in Washington set to continue. Meanwhile, Trump was making the headlines yet again after he said in an interview with Fox & Friends that payments to two women alleging to have had affairs with him were not a campaign violation as they came from him personally, not the campaign. The comments came after his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight charges including campaign finance violations on Tuesday. Cohen said the payments had been made at the direction of Trump to influence the election. Market participants were also looking ahead to Fed chairman Jerome Powell's speech at the Jackson Hole symposium on Friday. “Although Powell will not provide a definite answer on whether the Fed will hike rates two more times this year, he might still provide some signals to investors. “If Powell believes that current trade tensions between the US, China and the rest of the world will possibly start impacting economic growth, this suggests the Fed may begin considering slowing down the tightening pace.” On the data front, initial jobless claims drifted lower last week, signalling a still robust pace of hiring in the economy. Initial unemployment claims for the week ending on 18 August slipped by 2,000 to 210,000, whereas economists at Barclays had anticipated a rise of 3,000 to 215,000. Meanwhile, Markit's manufacturing PMI fell to a nine-month low of 54.5, falling short of an expected reading of 55. Mirroring trends seen across the services sector, the latest data pointed to slower rates of output and new business growth at manufacturing companies due to stretched supply chains, import tariffs on metals, and a rise in demand for domestically sourced items. Sales of new homes in the US slumped by 1.7% month-on-month during July, for a second straight monthly decline as the housing market began to look like it may have lost some of its steam. Newly built homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 627,000 last month, down from the 638,000 seen in June and 654,000 in May, according to the Commerce Department. It was separately reported that the rate of house price inflation in the US had eased slightly last month. In seasonally adjusted terms, the Federal Housing Finance Administration's Purchase-Only index edged up by 0.2% month-on-month in July. But the year-on-year rate of price increases slipped from 6.7% in June to 6.5%. In corporate news, retailer Children's Place dropped 1.27% despite its second-quarter adjusted earnings beating estimates. Elsewhere, Hormel Foods dipped 3.06% after its third-quarter sales missed expectations and the company downgraded its outlook. | 
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