US stocks are swerving through another shaky day of trading, with uncertainty still high about just what President Donald Trump will announce about tariffs on his “Liberation Day”.

The S&P 500 was up by 0.1 per cent in midday trading after storming back from an early drop of 1 per cent. The Dow Jones was down 208 points, or 0.5 per cent, the Nasdaq composite was 0.2 per cent higher.

The Australian sharemarket is set to edge lower, with futures at 5.04am AEDT pointing to a loss of 4 points at the open. The ASX jumped by 1 per cent on Tuesday.

Wall Street has been particularly shaky recently, and momentum has been swinging not just day to day but also hour to hour because of uncertainty about what Trump will do with tariffs — and by how much they will worsen inflation and grind down growth for economies. On Monday, for example, the S&P 500 careened from an early loss of 1.7 per cent to a gain of 0.6 per cent.

Tesla helped drive Tuesday’s rise after climbing 5.2 per cent. That, though, clawed back just a small portion of the electric-vehicle maker’s steep losses this year, and it’s still down by nearly a third for 2025 so far.

Elon Musk’s company is expected to report on Wednesday how many vehicles it delivered during the first three months of the year, and worries have grown about a potential backlash from customers. Protesters have been swarming Tesla showrooms due to anger about Musk’s leading the US government’s efforts to cut spending.

PVH jumped 18.2 per cent after the company behind the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also said it plans to send $US500 million ($800 million) to shareholders this year through purchases of its own stock.

In the bond market, Treasury yields sank immediately after a report said US manufacturing activity contracted last month, breaking a two-month streak of growth. A separate report said US employers were advertising slightly fewer job openings at the end of February than economists expected.

Companies are saying they’re already feeling effects from Trump’s trade war, even with the main event potentially coming on Wednesday, when the president will announce a sweeping set of tariffs.

“Customers are pulling in orders due to anxiety about continued tariffs and pricing pressures,” one computer and electronic products company told the Institute for Supply Management in its monthly manufacturers’ survey.

“Starting to see slower-than-normal sales in Canada, and concerns of Canadians boycotting US products could become a reality,” a manufacturer in the food, beverage and tobacco products industry said in the ISM’s survey.

The economy is still growing, to be sure, and the job market has remained relatively solid even with February’s slightly weaker-than-expected job openings.

But one of the fears hitting the market is that even if Trump announces less-punishing tariffs than feared, the stop-and-start rollout of his trade strategy may by itself cause US households and businesses to freeze their spending, which would damage the economy. Trump has pushed for tariffs in part to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States from other countries.

All the nervousness in the market has helped push the price of gold to records, and it briefly topped $US3175 per ounce before turning slightly lower. That’s up from less than $US2700 at the start of the year.

On Wall Street, Johnson & Johnson dropped 6.2 per cent after a US bankruptcy court judge denied the company’s settlement plan related to baby powder containing talc. It’s the third time the company’s attempt to resolve the baby powder settlement through bankruptcy has been rejected by courts.

Airline stocks continued their descent on worries that customers feeling nervous about the economy and global trade won’t fly as much. Delta Air Lines lost 4.1 per cent, and United Airlines gave up 3.5 per cent.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia to recover some of their sharp drops from the day before.

In Europe, Germany’s DAX returned 1.7 per cent, and France’s CAC 40 rose 1.1 per cent after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the world’s biggest trade bloc would not cower in the face of US trade demands.

“Europe holds a lot of cards, from trade to technology to the size of our market. But this strength is also built on our readiness to take firm counter measures if necessary,” von der Leyen said. “All instruments are on the table.”

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 held steady as Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he was imploring Trump not to impose higher auto tariffs on Japan, a longtime US ally. A central bank survey found a worsening in business sentiment among big manufacturers.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.17 per cent from 4.23 per cent late Monday and from roughly 4.80 per cent in January. That’s a significant move for the bond market, and yields have been falling with worries about a potentially slowing US economy.

AP

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