The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is testing the 44,450 region on Tuesday, with equities slowing their recent pace of volatility as United States (US) President Donald Trump walks back nearly all of his recent trade war blustering and kicks his self-imposed tariff can down the road for a third time. US import tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada have been delayed for up to 30 days, while planned tariffs on China are still on the table and warnings of tariffs on goods from the European Union are also in the pipe.

Despite all the trade war bluster, the Trump administration's three straight walkbacks have left investors with a strong sense that the tariffs were never meant to be an implemented part of the US' trade strategy. Instead, they were President Trump's best efforts to work twice as hard to accomplish half as much, strong-arming some of America's closest trading partners to the negotiating table and obtaining concessions that were largely already agreed to with the previous US federal administration. Tariff threats are likely to be treated less seriously by markets moving forward as investors focus on material issues.

US JOLTS Jobs Openings figures from December printed on Tuesday, showing a slight cooling to 7.6M from 8.09M. JOLTS has an abysmally low respondent rate of around 30%, and December's print is also a preliminary figure, due for a number of revisions throughout the calendar year. Regardless, the trend in patchy job openings data remains clear as the indicator grinds into two-year lows.

Over two-thirds of the Dow Jones equity board is testing into the high side on Tuesday, with investor sentiment brushing off its recent overreaction to trade war gesticulations by the US. Merck & Co tumbled over 10% and fell below $90 per share despite topping Wall Street earnings expectations after the drug supplier softened its forward guidance, warning investors that demand for vaccines in China has not recovered to expected levels and will be pausing further shipments to mainland China to alleviate a supply.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, one of the oldest stock market indices in the world, is compiled of the 30 most traded stocks in the US. The index is price-weighted rather than weighted by capitalization. It is calculated by summing the prices of the constituent stocks and dividing them by a factor, currently 0.152. The index was founded by Charles Dow, who also founded the Wall Street Journal. In later years it has been criticized for not being broadly representative enough because it only tracks 30 conglomerates, unlike broader indices such as the S&P 500.(Cay) Newsmaker23

Source: Fxstreet