US stocks diverged on Wednesday in the countdown to the end of Federal Reserve's policy meeting, overwhelmingly expected to usher in the first US interest rate cut of 2025.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) moved up nearly 0.7%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) nudged down 0.1%, Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell over 0.5%. The major US gauges ended Tuesday little changed to stay within reach of record highs.

Investors are keeping their powder dry in anticipation that the Fed will start the switch to easing, a move hinted at last month by Chair Jerome Powell. A labor market slowdown is expected to convince policymakers to pivot toward rate cuts, despite an uptick in inflation. Traders are pricing in a 96% chance of a 25 basis point cut and a 4% chance of a bigger move when the decision arrives at 2:00 p.m. ET.

The bigger question for Wall Street is how many more cuts could be on the way. The hunt for clues will focus on the "dot-plot" of predictions from each Fed official, as well as on Powell's remarks at a press conference 30 minutes after the rate announcement.

The decision comes amid growing concerns over the central bank's independence. While President Trump has lambasted Powell, he may soon be able to exert more direct influence over policymakers. The Senate confirmed his nominee to the Fed on Monday, enabling Stephen Miran to vote this week. At the same time, Lisa Cook took part in the policy decision after an appeals court rebuffed Trump's attempt to oust the Fed governor.

On the corporate front, China has told its biggest tech companies including Alibaba not to buy the Nvidia (NVDA) AI chip tailor-made for the country, effectively banning tens of thousands of orders, the Financial Times reported. Nvidia shares dropped nearly 3%.

General Mills (GIS) quarterly sales topped estimates, but shares slipped after the Cheerios maker warned of a challenging consumer backdrop. Also on tap, Cracker Barrel (CBRL) results are in focus following controversy over its now-abandoned logo change.

Opendoor's (OPEN) stock moved up nearly 16% to trade above $10 each in morning trading, for a gain of nearly 225% over the past month.

Shares in the operator of the iBuyer platform, which uses algorithms to flip houses, have risen since it hired Shopify's COO Kaz Nejatian as its new CEO.

The real-estate platform provider has just marked its first quarter of positive adjusted earnings in Q2. Its share price has gained more than 760% in the past six months, leading some to consider it a meme stock.

Hims & Hers Health (HIMS) stock fell nearly 3% on Wednesday morning, after dropping nearly 6% in the previous trading session.

The declines come after the US Food and Drug Administration sent the telehealth platform provider a warning letter last week. The FDA said Hims & Hers made false or misleading claims in its online marketing of its compounded semaglutide products.

HIMS stock has had a volatile year so far, but the San Francisco company's shares are up roughly 104% in 2025. In June, the stock suffered after Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk (NVO) ended its partnership with Hims & Hers, accusing it of \\"deceptive\\" marketing.

HIMS is one of the top 10 most-shorted stocks in the US, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence Data, with some 30% of shares currently sold short.

Oracle shares fell more than 2% early on Wednesday, halting its recent rally for now.

The AI cloud provider's stock has been on a tear after its latest quarterly financial report showed a massive backlog of contracts in its cloud business, reportedly led by OpenAI.

Adding to that winning streak was Oracle's reported role in a preliminary US-China deal for TikTok to continue operations in the US ahead of a ban. The deal is expected to be finalized on Friday during a call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Oracle's upswing added $193 billion to the software giant's market cap. But that gain has sparked bubble fears, given the stock is now more expensive than eight of the nine most valuable companies in the S&P 500 (^GSPC).

Plus, concerns have persisted over Oracle’s reliance on OpenAI and the ChatGPT maker’s ability to fund its reported $300 billion deal with the software giant.

Yahoo Finance's Jennifer Schonberger reports:

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to trim its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point on Wednesday afternoon, while giving investors new clues about how many more cuts could occur during the remainder of the year.

Markets are looking for a 25 basis point reduction, the first of 2025, followed by similar-sized cuts at the last Fed policy meetings of the year, in late October and early December.

How many cuts central bankers envision for the rest of 2025 will come in the form of the Fed's \\"dot plot,\\" a chart updated quarterly that shows each official's prediction about the direction of the central bank's benchmark interest rate.

The last dot plot, released in June, revealed a consensus among Fed officials for two cuts this year amid uncertainties about how the Trump administration's policies on tariffs, immigration, and taxes would impact the economy.

The question is whether policymakers will stick with that prediction, with inflation still running a full percentage point above their 2% target, or get more aggressive about easing monetary policy amid new signs of labor market weakness.

Matthew Luzzetti, chief US economist for Deutsche Bank, said a path for more rate cuts would likely be driven by \\"risk management considerations,\\" with greater downside risks to the labor market and more limited upside risks to inflation.

Read the full story here.

Nvidia (NVDA) shares fell 2% after the market open on Wednesday, as investors weighed a Financial Times report that Chinese authorities told leading tech companies in the country not to use Nvidia's AI chips.

\\"The decision underscores Beijing’s push to cut reliance on US semiconductors amid intensifying AI competition with the US and the promotion of domestic chip and tool utilization,\\" Hedgeye Risk Management analyst Felix Wang wrote in a note after the news.

China's internet regulator told companies to halt orders of the RTX Pro 6000D, which Nvidia custom-made for customers in the country.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has repeatedly stressed the importance of the Chinese AI market, what he sees as a rapidly growing $50 billion market opportunity.

The exec lobbied the Trump administration to lift a US ban on exports of its lower-power H20 chips to China this summer in an unprecedented deal that involved Nvidia sharing its revenue from those sales with the government. Huang said in August that Nvidia is working on a less powerful version of its Blackwell chips for China.

But Huang told reporters during a briefing in London on Wednesday: “I think that we could only be in service of a market if the country wants us to be.”

“I’m disappointed with what I see, but they have larger agendas to work out, you know, between China and the United States, and I’m understanding of that, and we’re patient about it,\\" he added.

US stocks opened mostly steady on Wednesday as investors awaited the Federal Reserve's decision on interest rates this afternoon — which is expected to bring the central bank's first rate cut of 2025.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose less than 0.1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) nudged nearly 0.1% lower. The moves come after the indexes eased from record highs on Tuesday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) moved up nearly 0.4%.

Lyft (LYFT) shares jumped as much as 30% in premarket trading Wednesday after the ride hail company and Uber (UBER) rival said it's partnering with Alphabet-owned (GOOG, GOOGL) robotaxi firm Waymo to offer self-driving cabs in Nashville in 2026.

“We’re delighted to partner with Lyft and launch in Nashville next year, as we continue to scale our Waymo ride-hailing service to more people in more places,” Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said in a statement Wednesday.

Waymo is in expansion mode: the company on Tuesday said it obtained a permit to test its driverless taxis at the San Francisco International Airport, and its cabs are already available in the city of San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Austin and Atlanta.

Uber shares fell 4% on news of the Waymo-Lyft partnership. Lyft shares pared initial gains, up 15% shortly before the market open.

Economic data: FOMC Rate Decision; Housing starts (August); Building permits (August)

Earnings calendar: General Mills (GIS), Bullish (BLSH)

Here are some of the biggest stories you may have missed overnight and early this morning:

Fed's finally ready for rate cuts. One clue to what comes next.

China bans tech companies from buying Nvidia's AI chips

Consumer spending is echoing the skewed jobs market

US 30-year mortgage rate drops, refinances jump: MBA data

Alibaba AI chip effort quickens with big client China Unicom

WorkDay jumps as as Elliott takes $2B stake, backs leadership

Oracle sparks bubble talk with stock price in dot-com territory

FedEx profit to be hit by US tariffs on small packages

Yahoo Finance's Hamza Shaban takes a hard look at the state of American consumer spending in today's takeaway from Morning Brief.

The question of who is doing the spending powering the US economy has taken on greater importance as talk of a slowdown grows, he notes:

The most affluent consumers account for a bigger share of total US spending, reinforcing the lopsided dynamic of unbothered consumption for the wealthy and more cautious shopping for everyone else. ...

\\"As long as they keep spending, the economy should avoid recession, but if they turn more cautious, for whatever reason, the economy has a big problem,\\" Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, said.

Still, economists pointed to specific categories to underscore softness, even as retail sales topped expectations.

“Tariff pressures are becoming increasingly visible, with several retail categories registering volume declines as some households struggle to absorb higher prices,\\" said EY-Parthenon chief economist Gregory Daco in a note on Tuesday.

Read more here.

WorkDay (WDAY) stock rose 7% before the bell on Wednesday after announcing it plans to acquire Swedish AI company Sana in a deal worth around $1.1B. Activist investor Elliott Management said on Tuesday it has built a stake of more than $2 billion in Workday, while voicing support for the company's leadership.

Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) stock fell 2% in premarket trading on Wednesday. This follows the news last week from the Wall Street Journal that Paramount Skydance (PSKY) is preparing a majority-cash bid for the media conglomerate.

Alibaba's (BABA) stock rose on Wednesday before the bell after news broke that it had secured a high-profile customer in China Unicom (0762.HK) for its AI chips.

Nvidia's (NVDA) stock came under pressure before the bell, thanks to a Financial Times report that Beijing has told Chinese tech giants not to use its AI chips.

Shares of the AI leader slid 1.5% in the wake of the report, which cited three unidentified source.

The FT reports:

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) told companies including ByteDance and Alibaba (BABA, 9988.HK) this week to end their testing and orders of the RTX Pro 6000D, Nvidia’s tailor-made product for the country, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

Several companies had indicated they would order tens of thousands of the RTX Pro 6000D, and had started testing and verification work with Nvidia’s server suppliers, the people said.

After receiving the CAC order, the companies told their suppliers to stop the work, the people added.

The ban goes beyond earlier guidance from regulators that focused on the H20, Nvidia’s other China-only chip widely used for AI. It comes after Chinese regulators concluded that domestic chips had attained performance comparable to those of Nvidia’s models used in China.

Read more here (premium).

StubHub (STUB) is set to begin trading on the NYSE on Wednesday after the ticket reseller's IPO gave it a valuation of $8.6 billion.

It sold 34.04 million shares priced within the anticipated range at $23.50 piece, setting the stage for its long-awaited stock market debut.

Reuters reports:

StubHub is leading another busy week for the autumn IPO market, with companies ranging from cybersecurity to e-commerce slated to go public in New York by Friday.

Last week, half a dozen companies led by fintech giant Klarna (KLAR) raised more than $4 billion combined, marking the busiest week for the U.S. IPO market since 2021.

StubHub had paused its IPO plans in April as tariff-driven volatility rattled equities and slammed shut the new listings market.

Read more here.

Bank of America's latest Global Fund Manager Survey suggested that Wall Street fund managers are piling back into stocks, even as the economic backdrop turns shakier.

Yahoo Finance's Allie Canal reports:

[The survey] showed global equity allocations for September rose to a seven-month high while average cash balances held steady at just 3.9% for the third straight month — a level that often signals caution as investors run short on dry powder.

Still, BofA strategist Michael Hartnett noted sentiment hasn't tipped into full-blown euphoria. That would require cash to fall below 3.7% or equity allocations to climb above 30%. At current levels, with 28% of fund managers overweight on global equities, investors are bullish but not yet at the \\"hubris\\" point that has historically marked a contrarian sell signal. ...

But cracks are showing in the stock market's rally. The \\"long Magnificent Seven\\" trade remains the most crowded on Wall Street, underscoring how dependent the rally still is on a narrow band of megacap tech. And 77% of fund managers now expect a \\"stagflationary\\" environment — sluggish growth paired with sticky inflation and higher unemployment — a reminder of how uneasy the macro backdrop remains.

Read more here.

A rapid rally in Chinese tech stocks accelerated on Wednesday as renewed bets on artificial intelligence sent the Hang Seng Tech Index (HSTECH.HK) to its highest level in nearly four years.

The index, which tracks Hong Kong's tech giants, advanced 4.3% to reach its highest close since November 2021. Baidu (BIDU, 9888.HK) led the gains, up 16%, as shares of Alibaba (BABA, 9988.HK), SMIC (0981.HK), and JD.com (JD, 9618.HK) also jumped.

Bloomberg reports:

The index is now set for its seventh consecutive week of gains, helped by easing tensions between China and the US as well as hopes that tech companies’ big bets on AI will pay off. The gauge has jumped 42% this year, trouncing a benchmark of regional peers.

“China tech leaders are visibly re-accelerating AI spend and product rollouts — models, robotaxis, in-house chips — while also proving they can monetize AI faster than many expected,” said Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo Markets. “With valuations lagging the U.S., investors are starting to pay attention again.”

Read more here.

I spent some time with first son Eric Trump and one of his crypto partners Asher Genoot of Hut 8 at Trump Tower on Tuesday afternoon. A large chunk of that time was devoted to all things crypto, naturally.

Besides being President Trump's son and EVP of the Trump Organization, Eric is also the co-founder of the newly public crypto miner American Bitcoin (ABTC). Genoot's Hut 8 — where he is CEO — provides the infrastructure (power, back office services, etc.) that allows American Bitcoin to mine bitcoin (BTC-USD).

I'll have a story out from this meeting on Yahoo Finance later today. But the one thing I haven't appreciated enough with the crypto story is how global and institutional it's becoming.

Sure, it's one thing to read a press release from BlackRock (BLK) saying it's trying to do more in the space. It's something else entirely to sit next to ultimate crypto insiders (Trump and Genoot in this case) and hear them walk you through the sovereign wealth funds plowing into various crypto investments.

\\"Every person I know is trying to buy bitcoin,\\" Trump told me.

And I believe him.

If you are thinking that crypto is still all about retail traders buying with one eye closed, hoping another crypto winter is coming, you are missing the narrative that has helped propel the space in 2025 ... and will likely do so in 2026.

Deutsche Bank is staying bullish on gold (GC=F) despite an almost 40% surge this year.

Strategist Michael Hsueh released a $4,000 per target for the price of gold in 2026 this morning.

His thesis:

\\"With gold having reached our 2026 forecast (USD 3,700/oz), we believe that the FX and rates environment remain conducive to further upside, while positioning indicators are not stretched. Although gold has screened as rich versus fair value, we think much of this is due to the strength of official demand, which we expect to persist.\\"

Markets across Asia were mixed overnight Tuesday following a reduction in tariffs on Japanese goods and high expectations about the impact of the Fed's rate cut on global trade.

AP Finance reports:

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 (^N225) gained 0.2% in morning trading to 44,995.79. The Finance Ministry reported Japan's exports to the U.S. dropped 13.8% in August compared to the same month the previous year, marking the fifth straight month of declines, as auto exports declined amid President Donald Trump's tariffs.

U.S. tariffs on Japanese automobiles and auto parts dropped from 27.5%, the amount Trump initially levied, to 15% this week, still higher than the original 2.5%. Wednesday's data was for the month of August, when the tariffs were higher. Japan's overall exports to the world for the month was little changed, slipping 0.1%, as exports grew to Europe and the Middle East.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 (^AXJO) slipped 0.7% to 8,812.80. South Korea's Kospi (^KS11) dropped nearly 1.0% to 3,415.71. Hong Kong's Hang Seng (^HSI) surged nearly 0.9% to 26,662.13, while the Shanghai Composite (000888.SS) shed less than 0.1% to 3,858.74.

Read more here.

TechCrunch reports:

Groww, India’s largest retail brokerage firm, is set to test the country’s public markets with a multi-billion-dollar IPO. The listing comes comes just over a year after the company restructured its corporate headquarters from Delaware back to India — a move that could make it the first Indian startup to list at home following a relocation from the U.S.

Backed by Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella and marquee investors including Y Combinator, Ribbit Capital, and Tiger Global, Groww’s listing — expected later this year — is set to double as a major exit opportunity for global venture funds. The three investment firms are offloading about 236 million shares — roughly 5.6% of Groww’s total equity base — per the draft IPO documents filed on Tuesday. That makes them the single largest selling bloc, accounting for about 41% of all shares being offered to the public.

Pine Labs, Razorpay, Meesho, and Zepto are among the Indian startups that have recently shifted their base back home. Walmart-backed PhonePe relocated its headquarters from Singapore to India in 2022, while Flipkart — once its parent and also backed by Walmart — similarly announced plans to move its headquarters from Singapore to India earlier this year.

Last year, Groww became one of the first startups to shift its headquarters back to India from the U.S. The startup paid around $159 million in taxes as part of the move.

Read more here.