The major U.S. index futures on the Dow Jones, S&P and Nasdaq are currently pointing to a roughly flat open on Wednesday, with stocks likely to show a lack of direction after trending higher over the past few sessions.
Lingering uncertainty about President Donald Trump’s tariff plans may key some traders on the sidelines ahead of the release of some key U.S. economic data in the coming days.
Trump said during an interview with Newsmax on Tuesday that new tariffs would “probably be more lenient than reciprocal,” because reciprocal tariffs would be “very tough for people.”
However, while Trump also said there would be exceptions to the tariffs, he noted there would be “not too many exceptions.”
Traders may also be reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of the Federal Reserve’s preferred consumer price inflation readings on Friday.
The futures remained little unchanged even after the Commerce Department released a report showing an unexpected increase by new orders for U.S. manufactured durable goods in the month of February.
Following the rally seen during Monday’s session, stocks showed a lack of direction over the course of the trading day on Tuesday. The major averages bounced back and forth across the unchanged line before eventually closing in positive territory for the third straight day.
The Nasdaq climbed 83.26 points or 0.5 percent to 18,271.86, the S&P 500 rose 9.08 points or 0.2 percent to 5,776.65 and the Dow inched up 4.18 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 42,587.50.
The choppy trading on Wall Street came amid ongoing uncertainty about President Donald Trump’s tariff plans following recent reports he plans to take a more narrow approach to new tariffs.
Trump said at an event on Monday that he “may give a lot of countries breaks” on reciprocal tariffs that are set to take effect April 2nd.
However, Trump also said he plans to impose tariffs on the automotive and pharmaceutical industries in the “very near future” and later added the lumber and semiconductor industries to his list of targets.
The president has recently made many conflicting remarks about his tariff plans, leading to considerable uncertainty on Wall Street.
Meanwhile, traders largely shrugged off a report from the Conference Board showing consumer confidence in the U.S. deteriorated by more than expected in the month of March.
The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index tumbled to 92.9 in March from an upwardly revised 100.1 in February.
Economists had expected the consumer confidence index to slump to 94.2 from the 98.3 originally reported for the previous month.
“Consumer confidence declined for a fourth consecutive month in March, falling below the relatively narrow range that had prevailed since 2022,” said Stephanie Guichard, Senior Economist, Global Indicators at The Conference Board.
Despite the higher close by the broader markets, pharmaceutical stocks moved sharply lower on the day, dragging the NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Index down by 2.0 percent.
Considerable weakness was also visible among utilities stocks, as reflected by the 1.6 percent loss posted by the Dow Jones Utility Average.
Airline, healthcare and biotechnology stocks also saw notable weakness, while gold stocks moved higher along with the price of the precious metal, driving the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index up by 1.6 percent.
Dow Jones, S&P, Nasdaq, Ongoing Tariff Uncertainty May Lead To Choppy Trading On Wall Street
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