Wall Street closes mixed with conflicting sentiment surrounding trade and political grounds

Wall Street was choppy on Tuesday with the day starting out positive on the heels of a bullish session for European markets. The optimism surrounding renewed U.S.-China trade talks spilled over to the US. However, but due to the prospects of a government shutdown over border-wall funding in a meeting with Democratic congressional leaders as well as a Washington Post story that pointed to a deterioration of Sino/US trade relations as markets waited for an announcement over the decision on Huawei CFO, the markets turned over.

The Washington Post story, titled" Trump administration to condemn China over hacking and economic espionage, escalating tensions between superpowers",  coincided with a drop in US stocks midday. This came in contrast to earlier reports that officials from Washington and Beijing had reportedly started to engage in trade talks once again via a phone call between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. This was according to The Wall Street Journal. We also had news from Bloomberg that China was moving to reduce the tariffs which it had recently levied on imports of cars. President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday that the U.S. was engaged in “very productive conversations” with China. 

DJIA levels

• Support levels: 24030 23642 23407 
• Resistance levels: 24889 25277 25586

The technical outlook has not changed with the DJIA beneath the 38.2% and 23.6% Fibos of the recent rout, and daily RSI remains biased to the downside and eyes stay 23878 and the prior day's low. However, the recently formed hammer, long wick at the bottom of a bullish closing daily stick, is a warning to the bears.