US stocks were little changed on Tuesday as renewed US-China trade talks entered their second day after an upbeat initial meeting.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ( ^DJI ) was little changed while the S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) rose 0.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ( ^IXIC ) gained 0.3%.
The mood is cautious as investors keep a close eye on the trade talks, which restarted in the morning in London. While a deal on access to China's rare earth minerals is the US's priority, negotiators are navigating contentious issues that have fueled a rift between the two trading partners.
Any signs of progress will likely be greeted with relief by markets, given switchbacks in President Trump's tariff policy and in US-China relations have fed uncertainty about risks to economic growth worldwide. On Monday, stocks on Wall Street edged higher after White House officials suggested discussions had been productive — though Trump himself cautioned that "China's not easy".
Read more: The latest on Trump's tariffs
Chinese stocks slid suddenly on Tuesday before the meeting resumed, a bout of volatility that suggested investors aren't confident of success. “The market is too sensitive,” Fu Shifeng, investment director at Cheng Zhou Investment, told Bloomberg. “People seem to be speculating that the talks didn’t go well.”
Meanwhile, a gauge of US small-business optimism came in higher in May — the first rise since September — amid the trade truce with China. But worries about Trump's tax-and-spending megabill stoked uncertainty about the outlook, the NFIB survey found.
Investors are now counting down to the release of the May Consumer Price Index (CPI) report on Wednesday. The report will offer fresh insight into the state of inflation amid Trump's evolving trade policy. Analysts expect to see that price pressures accelerated last month.
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