Wall Street middles as recovery stalls while traders watch Korea, Trump's tariff drama

• Korea talks, Trump tariffs highjacking headlines for Tuesday.
• Expectations are high that Trump tariffs will be resolved without incident.

Wall Street middled in Tuesday trading with the trading world focused on talks between North and South Korean leaders, and Trump firebranding his way through international relations as usual. 

Kim Jong-un of North Korea has shocked the world by showing an interest in engaging in outright talks with South Korea's Moon Jae-in, and the move signals a possible turning point for the Korean peninsula, depending on how things develop. 

Meanwhile, the US is still rattling from Donald Trump's promise to impose stiff tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum last week, and markets initially dropped on reaction to the news, but have since recovered on the expectation that cooler heads within Trump's administration will successfully walk the president back from his current ledge. Despite the market confidence in a peaceful resolution to both Trump's tariff proposal and Korean diplomacy, markets end Tuesday's session right where they started, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) down slightly on the day and trading near 24,856.0, while the Standard & Poor's 500 (S&P) Index is up slightly at 2,724.50.

The DJIA is still 6.9% off its January peak of 26,705.6 and the S&P is also down 5.3% from a January high of 2,877.43. Wall Street looks safely in recovery mode, with DJIA off a recent low of 24,213.8, and the S&P up from 2,647.68.

DJIA Technical Outlook 

Highs and lows on the Daily candles have been contracting following January's plunge, implying weakness in the current recovery mode, while H4 charts show the industrial index struggling to make higher lows amidst drastic swings in selling pressure taking the top off the index. Current support levels are clearly marked in by swing points at 24,592.8 and 24,213.8 while resistance is priced in at 25,433.8 and 25,823.5.