An escalation in trade tensions has put increasing pressure on equity markets over the last week, as the optimism of a potential near-term resolution that helped push equities to record highs has started to be unwound.

Equity markets may be in for a turbulent week ahead following an announcement from President Trump that he plans to impose additional tariffs on China if a trade deal is not reached by the end of the week.

A host of corporate earnings beats and a better than expected headline figure for U.S. GDP growth in the first quarter helped fuel equity returns last week, driving the S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite to new record-high closes.

Equity markets broadly moved sideways in a holiday-shortened trading week that was mostly absent of any notable directional drivers outside of a stream of first quarter corporate earnings reports.

U.S. equities closed out a choppy week of trading on a positive note following better than expected first quarter earnings reports from several large banks and a rebound in Chinese export data.