EDITOR'S NOTE
China is ready to return to the negotiating table, according to President Donald Trump, and the news gave the Dow a welcome boost after Friday’s dip of more than 600 points.
Speaking to reporters at the G-7 meeting in France, the president said the U.S. and China would start talking “very seriously.” But there was a dose of skepticism on China’s side as Global Times Editor-in-Chief Hu Xijin said in a tweet that negotiators from both countries did not talk over the phone and that “China didn’t change its position” and “won’t cave to US pressure.”
“We are sure we are speaking for virtually all market participants when we say it’s exasperating,” Paul Hickey of Bespoke told clients Monday.
August is usually a quiet trading month, especially in the final week as traders flee major cities ahead of the Labor Day holiday. That’s hardly been the case these past few weeks. Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge, the Cboe Volatility Index, has surged more than 65% in August as the U.S.-China trade war heated up. 
In a note to clients Monday, Mark Haefele, global chief investment officer at UBS Wealth Management, warned clients to “brace for higher volatility” while talks dominate market moves over the near term.
Although equity markets did make a comeback Monday, it was tentative. U.S. trading volumes were below their 30-day average of 5.76 billion shares heading into the close. On Friday, those volumes were well above that average — at nearly 6.3 billion. The lower volume Monday suggests traders are still hesitant to participate in any rally that’s based on trade headlines.
“You can try all you want to analyze the latest fundamental or technical developments as a guide to the short-term direction of the market, but you're kidding yourself if you think anything but the Twitter account of @realdonaldtrump is driving the latest short-term moves,” Bespoke’s Hickey says. TOP NEWS
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