U.S. Stocks Finish Choppy Trading Day Little Changed

Following the sharp pullback seen during Monday's session, stocks showed a lack of direction over the course of the trading day on Tuesday. The major averages spent the day bouncing back and forth across the unchanged line before eventually closing narrowly mixed.

While the tech-heavy Nasdaq inched up 5.95 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 20,418.46, the S&P 500 edged down 4.46 points or 0.1 percent to 6,225.52 and the Dow fell 165.60 points or 0.4 percent to 44,240.76.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as investors seemed reluctant to make more significant moves amid lingering uncertainty about President Donald Trump's trade policies.

Trump on Monday signed an executive order officially extending the suspension of reciprocal tariffs on U.S. trade partners.

The executive order says the 90-day suspension, which was due to expire on Wednesday, has been extended until August 1st based on “additional information and recommendations from various senior officials.”

Trump told reporters on Monday that the new tariff deadline is "not 100 percent firm" but said in a Truth Social post this morning that "No extensions will be granted," adding to the uncertainty.

The postponement of the deadline comes after Trump posted several letters to world leaders on Truth Social threatening to impose higher tariffs on at least fourteen countries.

A lack of major U.S. economic data may also have kept some traders on the sidelines ahead of the release of the minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy meeting on Wednesday.

The Fed minutes may shed additional light on the outlook for interest rates ahead of the central bank's next meeting on July 29-30.