Here's how the market settled after a day of trading:
S&P 500 (^GSPC): -0.32%, or 9.22 points
Dow (^DJI): -0.47%, or 120.93 points
Nasdaq (^IXIC): -0.34%, or 26.79 points
The U.S. Stock Market saw a downward swing at its close today, heightening this month's fears of recession.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Chinese officials have yet to confirm if trade negotiations had taken place between the U.S. and China, as President Trump had said they had occurred on Sunday at the G7, or Group of seven, summit in France.
Editor-in-Chief of the Chinese and English editions of the Global Times, Hu Xijin, tweeted yesterday that, "Based on what I know, Chinese and US top negotiators didn't hold phone talks in recent days, the two sides have been keeping contact at technical level, it doesn't have significance that President Trump suggested. China didn't change its position. China won't cave to US pressure."
Despite conflicting stories, U.S. investors seem to believe Trump's affirmations that U.S. and China will have further negotiations over trade.
In investing news, David Kostin and other analysts at Goldman Sachs discussed three main strategies for investors amid trade uncertainty which are looking to service providing companies, domestic facing firms, and dividend paying stocks. Service stocks, like Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL), have less foreign input costs and are less subject to tariffs as opposed to companies such as retailers.
In other market news, Pharmacy stocks saw an upward swing after Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) was hit was a smaller than expected fine from Oklahoma judge Thad Balkman due to the company's involvement in the opioid crisis. The company's stock ended more than 1% higher.
Utility stocks were among the better performers todays due to a decline in long-term interest rates.
Tomorrow's report will see further development of trade talks between China and U.S. and how the U.S. stock market will respond.