Newscasts - Wall Street closes higher as investors shrug off US shutdown

Lithium Americas

01/10/2025 23:53

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Source: 'Reuters - Business videos'

Description: Wall Street's main stock indexes rose on Wednesday, with strong support from the healthcare sector, despite weaker-than-expected private payrolls data and uncertainty around the first day of the U.S. federal government shutdown. Lisa Bernhard has more.

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Video Transcript:

Wall Street's main stock indexes rose on Wednesday, with the Dow eking out a marginal gain, the S&P 500 adding about 0.3%, and the NASDAQ climbing more than 0.4%. Investors largely shrugged off the first day of a US government shutdown, which could delay the release of Friday's key non-farm payrolls report if Democrats and Republicans don't reach a deal on a funding bill by then. Shana Orczyk Sissel is Founder and CEO of Banrion Capital Management.

I do think the lack of economic data of some of the larger economic data points that the Fed pays attention to, could delay the Fed from cutting further, but we did get soft ADP numbers today and that gives a little bit of direction, and it supports the Fed's belief that the labor markets are softening. We know that inflation is ticking higher, but the PCE, which is the indicator that the Fed pays attention to, wouldn't report to later in this month, so it's not necessarily impacted right this very second. I don't know that it impacts much right now.

Healthcare stocks rallied for a second-straight day after Pfizer cut a deal with President Trump that grants the drug company tariff relief in exchange for lower prices on certain prescription drugs. Pfizer gained more than 6.5%, Thermo Fisher added nearly 9.5%. Other notable stock moves included AES, which rallied more than 16.5% after the Financial Times reported that BlackRock-owned Global Infrastructure Partners was nearing a $38 billion deal to acquire the utility group. And US-listed shares of Canada's Lithium Americas soared more than 23% after the US Department of Energy said it has taken a 5% stake in the mining company and a separate 5% stake in the company's Thacker Pass joint venture with General Motors. Thacker Pass is said to be the largest lithium source in the Western Hemisphere.