Investing.com - U.S. futures were mostly flat on Tuesday as a lull in megaphone diplomacy between the U.S. and China gave investors time to process last week's sharp escalation of the two countries' trade war.
Wall Street surged more than 1% on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump said China had called him and wanted to restart negotiations. However, Chinese officials have declined to confirm if the phone calls occurred, casting doubt on Trump’s claims.
In the meantime, however, Beijing continued to let the yuan depreciate against the dollar: the onshore rate hit a new 11-year low of 7.1691 to the dollar in overnight trading.
Nasdaq 100 futures rose 8 points or 0.1% by 6:47 AM ET (10:40 GMT), while Dow futures gained 9 points or 0.1% and S&P 500 futures were up 1 point or 0.1%.
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) rose 2% in premarket trade after a court ordered fine was much lower than analysts had expected. An Oklahoma court ordered the company to pay $572.1 million in damages on allegations that it contributed to the opioid epidemic.
Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) gained 0.6%, while Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) inched up 0.3% and Boeing (NYSE:BA) was up 0.4% on news that a unit of Russian conglomerate Rostec is willing to settle out of court to resolve a dispute over an order for 35 of the airplane maker’s 737 MAX jets.
Elsewhere, JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) fell 0.4%, while Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) was down 0.3% and Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) inched down 0.1%.
On the economic front, the Conference Board's consumer confidence index are due out at 10:00 AM ET (14:00 GMT).
In commodities, crude oil jumped 1.3% to $54.30 a barrel. Gold futures gained 0.2% to $1,540.35 a troy ounce, while the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.2% to 97.808, due almost exclusively to losses against the yen - a reflection of continued demand for haven assets against the current uncertain backdrop.