Wall Street stocks rose again Wednesday, shrugging off the partial US government shutdown as major indices finished at records amid hopes for more Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.Both the Dow and S&P 500 closed at fresh records as investors focused on poor US employment data, which boosted expectations that the Fed could cut interest rates later this month.US government operations began grinding to a halt at 12:01 am (0401 GMT) Wednesday after Republicans and Democrats failed to break a budget impasse in Congress.The closure will see non-essential operations halted, leaving hundreds of thousands of civil servants temporarily unpaid, and many social safety net benefit payments potentially disrupted.But analysts note that shutdowns have not significantly weighed on markets due in part to the view that the negative impacts from closures can be reversed once the government reopens.”History reminds us that government shutdowns have typically been more headline-making than bottom-line impacting,” said CFRA Research’s Sam Stovall.Investors took note of a report from payroll firm ADP that showed the US private sector shed 32,000 jobs last month.”The market’s getting a little bit excited that this is something where the Fed can continue cutting interest rates,” said Tim Urbanowicz, chief investment strategist at Innovator Capital Management. “There’s this kind of middle ground where the data is not showing a lot of strength, but it’s not weak enough where people start getting concerned about recession.”Analysts said the weaker job market cements expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates twice more this year, after lowering borrowing costs last month for the first time since December.But investors are concerned the US government shutdown could prevent the release Friday of the key non-farm payrolls report — a crucial data point for the Fed on rate decisions.European markets were lifted by pharmaceutical shares after Pfizer was granted reprieve from Trump’s tariffs by agreeing to lower drug prices in the United States.Shares in British pharma giant AstraZeneca rose more than eight percent and GSK was up over six percent in London.Several US pharma names also rose, including Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb, while Lithium Americas Corp. surged 23.3 percent after announcing it would grant the US government an equity stake as part of the restructuring of a loan from the Department of Energy.In Asia, Tokyo’s stock market sank, while Hong Kong and Shanghai were closed for holidays.- Key figures at around 2030 GMT -New York – Dow: UP 0.1 percent at 46,441.10 (close)New York – S&P 500: UP 0.3 percent at 6,711.20 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.4 percent at 22,755.16 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 1.0 percent at 9,446.43 (close)Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.9 percent at 7,966.95 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: UP 1.0 percent at 24,113.62 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.9 percent at 44,550.85 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: Closed for a holidayShanghai – Composite: Closed for a holidayEuro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1728 from $1.1734 on TuesdayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3476 from $1.3446Dollar/yen: DOWN at 147.14 yen from 147.90 yenEuro/pound: DOWN at 87.04 pence from 87.27 penceWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.9 percent at $61.78 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 1.0 percent at $65.35 per barrelburs-jmb/ksb

President Donald Trump signaled Wednesday that he plans to push Chinese leader Xi Jinping on US soybean purchases when they meet, as American farmers grapple with fallout from his trade wars.”The Soybean Farmers of our Country are being hurt because China is, for ‘negotiating’ reasons only, not buying,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.”I’ll be meeting with President Xi, of China, in four weeks, and Soybeans will be a major topic of discussion,” he added.Trump said last month that he would meet Xi on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea starting at the end of October. He also said that he would travel to China next year.The talks come after Washington and Beijing engaged in a tit-for-tat tariffs war earlier this year, imposing escalating duties on each other’s exports.While both sides have since agreed to de-escalate tensions, this has been a shaky truce with lingering effects.Trump on Wednesday reiterated plans to use some US tariff revenues to aid farmers, while taking aim at his predecessor Joe Biden for not enforcing an earlier trade pact with Beijing that involved a step up in farm purchases.Trump’s aggressive trade policies and resulting fallout have weighed on US farmers, including hitting export markets like China.The American Soybean Association (ASA) has urged Trump to prioritize soybeans in trade talks with Beijing.It warned in August that Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs are “shutting American farmers out of their largest export market going into the 2025 soybean harvest.”China is a top global buyer of soybeans, with the United States once being a major source for the world’s second biggest economy.But “the US has made zero sales to China in this new crop marketing year due to 20-percent retaliatory tariffs imposed by China in response to US tariffs,” ASA President Caleb Ragland said last week.”This has allowed other exporters, Brazil and now Argentina, to capture our market at the direct expense of US farmers,” he added in a statement.”The frustration is overwhelming,” he said.The first Trump administration provided aid to farmers too as his previous trade war gutted exports to what had been a massive market for US soybeans and pork, among other products.During Trump’s first presidency, retaliatory tariffs on the United States caused more than $27 billion in US agricultural export losses from mid-2018 to late-2019.