Dow Gains, Nasdaq Slips Ahead of Expected Fed Rate Cut; S&P 500 Little Changed

China Bans Top Tech Firms From Buying Nvidia Chips, Report Says

5 minutes ago

China has reportedly banned its largest tech firms from buying Nvidia (NVDA) AI chips, adding pressure on the U.S. chipmaker’s sales in the country.

Shares of Nvidia, which entered Wednesday’s session up roughly a third this year, fell about 3% in recent trading following the news.

The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s internet regulator, told firms including TikTok owner ByteDance and e-commerce giant Alibaba (BABA) this week to end their testing and orders of the RTX Pro 6000D—the chip Nvidia introduced in July for the Chinese market, according to the Financial Times. Beijing had concluded that homegrown chips are now performing on par with the Nvidia chips allowed in China under export controls, the FT said, citing people familiar with the matter. ByteDance and Alibaba did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

The FT report said the companies that started testing and verification work on the chip with Nvidia’s server suppliers have since told their suppliers to stop the work. The new ban is stronger than prior guidance from regulators that focused on curbing use of the H20, an earlier version of Nvidia’s China-tailored AI chip, and comes after China recently accused Nvidia of antitrust violations.

Read the full article here.

–Nisha Gopalan

Layoffs Might Be Worse Than Economists Say

25 minutes ago

Many economists have described today’s labor market as one of little hiring and little firing, but the second half of that equation may not be as true as it was a few months ago.

Recent data suggests the job market may still be facing lower hiring, but is now shifting to a trend of at least medium-level layoffs. Recent red flags include a surge of unemployment claims to their highest level in four years, and an uptick of layoff announcements, which were 13% higher in August than a year before, according to consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Taken together, the recent data suggest hiring has been slowing while layoffs have been running at or above normal levels. Economists at UBS said last week that the economy could be at greater risk of falling into a recession than widely believed.

“The prevailing narrative that firms are not laying off workers is incorrect,” economists led by Jonathan Pingle wrote in a commentary. “Thus, with layoffs running at a normal clip, if hiring slows much further, the labor market would tip into contraction.”

To be sure, some data about the job market, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ widely watched report on job openings and labor turnover, indicates layoffs remained near historically low rates at least through July. However, Pingle wrote that the BLS data “has difficulty accurately capturing separation” and is not a reliable real-time indicator of job losses.

Pingle’s analysis did not delve into the causes of the job market’s labor ailments, but many economists have pointed the finger at President Donald Trump’s economic policies, especially his far-reaching campaign of raising tariffs on trading partners. The trade wars have stoked uncertainty among business leaders, increased costs, and pinched household budgets, all of which have discouraged spending.

–Diccon Hyatt

The ‘Jerry’ in Ben & Jerry’s Is Quitting

1 hr 12 min ago

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream will go on without the “Jerry.” 

In a letter shared by co-founder Ben Cohen, Jerry Greenfield wrote that he was resigning after 47 years because parent company Unilever (UL) has not lived up to promises regarding social justice the company made when it purchased the brand.

The news marks the latest conflict between the company and the pair of founders since the deal in 2000.Greenfield said the “unique merger Ben and I negotiated with Unilever” 20 years ago “enshrined our social mission and values in the company’s government structure in perpetuity,” and their right to independently speak out about that. He argued that the independence Unilever agreed to “is gone.”

The business, Greenfield said, was “always about more than ice cream,” and he and Ben always believed “our values and pursuit of justice were more important than the company itself.”

Greenfield’s “legacy deserves to be true to our values,” Cohen wrote.

Unilever’s Magnum Ice Cream Co., which Ben & Jerry’s is a part of, said in a statement to Investopedia that it was “forever grateful” to Greenfield for co-founding the ice cream company and addressing social causes. The company said it disagrees with his perspective and has “sought to engage both co-founders in a constructive conversation on how to strengthen Ben & Jerry’s powerful values-based position in the world.”

The company will remain focused on “carrying forward the legacy of peace, love, and ice cream” of Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum said.

The co-founders have butted heads several times with Unilever over statements on social issues, including filing a lawsuit against the company last year for allegedly silencing the ice cream maker for supporting Palestinians in the war in Gaza.

–Bill McColl

Workday Stock Jumps as Activist Investor Elliott Takes $2B Stake

1 hr 27 min ago

Workday (WDAY) shares jumped in early trading Wednesday after activist investor Elliott Investment Management reported it had taken a more than $2 billion stake in the human resources software provider.

Unlike most examples of activist investors calling for major changes in companies they invest in, Elliott has instead praised the leadership of Workday. It said in a statement that CEO Carl Eschenbach, CFO Zane Rowe and the entire Workday team “have made substantial progress in recent years, positioning Workday as a unique software franchise with industry-leading growth potential, best-in-class customer retention and a proven management team.” 

Elliott added that it was “pleased with our dialogue with the team,” and the strategy spelled out by the company at yesterday’s Financial Analyst Day. It noted that the plan will provide a “significant enhancement of Workday’s operating model and capital allocation framework.” In that presentation, Workday explained how it would be boosting the use of artificial intelligence to help customers become more efficient.

Workday shares were up 8% in the opening minutes of Wednesday’s session. Entering the day, the stock had lost 15% so far in 2025.

–Bill McColl

StubHub Stock Set to Debut Today

1 hr 52 min ago

StubHub has raised $800 million from its initial public offering after pricing the deal at the midpoint of a marketed range, as the online ticketing reseller succeeds in its third attempt at going public.

The company sold 34 million shares for $23.50 each after setting a price range at between $22 and $25 apiece. The pricing values StubHub at around $8.8 billion, based on in its Form S-1 filing where it disclosed it would have 373 million shares outstanding after the IPO, assuming an overallotment option is fully exercised.

The San Francisco-based company co-founded by CEO Eric Baker said it plans to start trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “STUB.”

StubHub’s last attempt to go public was in April, before President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs roiled markets and led the online ticketing platform to pull its listing plan along with others like Klarna (KLAR), which went public earlier this month. The IPO market has since picked up, with funds raised so far in 2025 already the most since 2021, a record year.

The track record of recent listings has been less buoyant, however, than a few months ago, when shares of design software platform Figma (FIG) more than tripled on their debut. Shares of buy now, pay later firm Klarna and those in the crypto exchange owned by the Winklevoss twins, Gemini (GEMI), rose around 15% on their market debuts this month.

–Nisha Gopalan

Apple Stock’s Not-So-Magnificent Year

3 hr 7 min ago

The Magnificent Seven is living up to its name this year, with one glaring exception. 

Apple (AAPL) shares have stalled out, with the iPhone maker’s stock down 5% in 2025 as of Tuesday’s close. Tesla (TSLA) and Amazon (AMZN), the Mag 7’s next-worst performers, are up single digits, and the remainder of the group—Microsoft (MSFT), Nvidia (NVDA), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (META)—has gained between 20% and 33%. The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS) is up 18% for the year, compared with the S&P 500’s 12% gain.

Artificial intelligence, the technology that’s sent so many stocks soaring, is the main reason Apple has struggled. The consensus on Wall Street is that Apple was slow out of the gate in the AI race, and has failed to deliver with the AI features released so far. 

While other tech giants quickly pivoted to all things AI when ChatGPT took off in late 2022, it took Apple two years to launch its first major AI tool, Apple Intelligence. In the year since, Apple has delayed new features, raising concerns that the company lacks a clear strategy to deploy the increasingly ubiquitous technology.

The Trump administration’s efforts to revive U.S. manufacturing haven’t helped matters. Apple makes the vast majority of its products in China and neighboring countries that may face high tariff rates. While Apple products are currently exempt from tariffs, the White House has repeatedly caught industry off guard with sudden and dramatic changes to trade policy.

Read the full article here.

–Colin Laidley

Meta Wants AI-Powered Smart Glasses to Drive New Growth

3 hr 7 min ago

Meta Platforms is looking to AI-powered glasses to drive growth, which some Wall Street analysts said could help position the tech giant as an early leader in a new category of devices.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg is widely expected to showcase Meta’s (META) latest AI glasses, called “Hypernova,” at its “Connect” developer conference Wednesday and Thursday.(The keynote address is set to start at 8 p.m. ET Wednesday, Register for the livestream here.) Meta’s existing glasses have shown some signs of success, with sales of its Ray-Ban AI glasses more than tripling in the first half of the year from a year ago.

The Hypernova glasses, developed with Ray-Ban and Oakley owner EssilorLuxottica, are viewed as a shift in Meta’s AI product strategy away from virtual reality headsets. They come with more smart glasses expected from competitors: Apple (AAPL), South Korea’s Samsung, and Amazon (AMZN) plan to launch their own versions next year and beyond, HSBC analysts wrote Tuesday.

Zuckerberg during a conference call in July said he sees the AI glasses becoming a major opportunity for the company and the “main way that we integrate superintelligence into our day-to-day lives,” according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense.

Read the full article here.

–Nisha Gopalan

Fed Drama May Come From ‘Dot Plot,’ Powell Remarks

3 hr 23 min ago

With a Federal Reserve interest-rate cut a near certainty, intrigue is likely to come from elsewhere at the central bank today.

Traders are pricing in a 96.1% chance that the Fed will cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points and the remaining 3.9% are expecting a 50-basis-point cut, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

When the Federal Open Market Committee wraps up its two-day meeting, members may divided on the decision and the course of monetary policy to come. The lineup itself isn’t exactly stable, with the Senate voting just Monday to confirm President Donald Trump’s newest appointee, White House economist Stephen Miran, while that night an appeals court ruled against President Trump in his efforts to oust Fed Governor Lisa Cook for allegedly falsifying mortgage documents.

Miran and two other Trump appointees to the Fed, Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, may vote for a more aggressive rate cut, which could result in an unusually divided FOMC. Fed watchers also will be paying attention to the so-called “dot plot,” which shows officials’ forecasts for where they think their benchmark rate should be in the coming years. Markets are pricing in a “substantial loosening,” Samuel Tombs, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a note to clients.

Investors also will be monitoring comments from Fed chair Jerome Powell at 2:30 p.m. ET, 30 minutes after the release of the central bank’s decision on rates. Powell could face a “challenging press conference” as he tries to summarize the FOMC’s debate, Deutsche Bank Chief U.S. Economist Matthew Luzzetti wrote in a research note.

US Stock Futures Tick Lower Ahead of Fed Decision

4 hr 11 min ago

Futures contracts connected to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were fractionally lower early Wednesday.

S&P 500 futures were down about 0.1%.

Nasdaq 100 contracts also were down roughly 0.1%.