Sometimes bad news is good news as global equity markets rallied sharply this past week, led by the U.S., with oversold conditions and rising expectations for looser monetary policy in response to weakening economic growth cited as the primary drivers.

Equity markets fell further this past week to close out a tough month of May with the S&P 500 delivering its worst May return (-6.6%) in 7 years and second worst since 1966, according to FactSet.

U.S. equities continued their negative slide this past week with depressed sentiment resulting from growing trade tensions still cited as the largest factor along with some weak economic data out of the U.S. and Europe.

Trade tensions remain front of mind after driving U.S. equities to further losses this past week.

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.