Wall Street nosedives as government shutdown risks economic data delays

The main US stock indexes declined on Wednesday as investors digested soft private payrolls data, while a federal government shutdown risked delaying economic data, heightening the uncertainty around the central bank's next policy move.

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Traders sharply increased bets on a 25-basis-point rate cut by the US Federal Reserve at its next meeting after the ADP National Employment Report showed private payrolls dropped the most in two-and-a-half years in September.

The labour market is walking a tightrope because data needs to be soft enough to support rate cuts, yet robust enough to avoid stoking fears of a broader economic slowdown.

“ADP may, for the first time, be a closer indicator of the true level of employment,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group.

“The Trump administration's policies are trying to transition a lot of the job growth out of the public sector into the private sector.”

At 10:08 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 62.56 points, or 0.14%, to 46,335.33, the S&P500 lost 21.64 points, or 0.32%, to 6,666.82, and the Nasdaq Composite shed 93.94 points, or 0.41%, to 22,565.63.

Communication services shares on the S&P500 fell 1.5%, dragged by losses in Meta Platforms and Alphabet, which shed 2.8% and 1.1%, respectively.

The stocks also weighed on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 tech sector lost 0.4%, with Nvidia down 0.9%.

The healthcare sector hit a more than five-month high and was last up 1.4%. Moderna and Regeneron both rose more than 6.3% and were among the top performers on the benchmark index.