Top stories of the morning: US shutdown, Nvidia record, Buffett's deal, Durov on poisoning

The first shutdown in years has begun in the USA: the publication of macroeconomic statistics has been halted, and civil servants have been sent on forced leave en masse. Berkshire Hathaway is preparing to buy OxyChem for $10 billion - one of the largest in recent years. Nvidia broke a record, raising its capitalization above $4.5 trillion thanks to deals with OpenAI and growing spending on AI infrastructure. These and other topics are in our review of the key events for the morning of October 1.

In the United States on Wednesday night began the first federal shutdown in several years after the failure of votes in the Senate and the termination of negotiations with Donald Trump, reports Yahoo Finance. Federal agencies are launching shutdown plans: hundreds of thousands of employees have been put on forced leave without pay, and the publication of key economic data - including the jobs report - has been delayed.

Social payments and the postal service will continue to work, but airports and other areas may face disruptions, the agency specified.

Trump, for his part, said that "a lot of good things can come out of a shutdown," hinting that government agencies could be overhauled.

At the same time, new tariffs are coming into effect in the United States: A 100 percent duty on some pharmaceutical products and a 25 percent duty on heavy trucks. In the coming weeks, levies on timber, furniture, and potentially foreign films may be added.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is close to buying Occidental Petroleum's petrochemical division (OxyChem) for about $10 billion, the Wall Street Journal reports. This could be the holding company's largest deal since it acquired insurer Alleghany for $11.6 billion in 2022. Berkshire now has a record cash reserve of $344 billion, the newspaper recalls.

Buffett, who is 95, will step down as Berkshire's CEO at the end of this year, remaining chairman of the board. His successor, Greg Abel - the former head of Berkshire's energy division - is known for his deep industry expertise. Despite this, Occidental shares fell 1.8% on Tuesday.

Berkshire already owns a 28.2% stake in Occidental worth more than $11 billion. Buffett has long invested in the company, the publication notes: in 2019, he backed its Anadarko deal, and in 2022, he actively bought shares amid market turbulence.

Nvidia shares rose nearly 3% on Tuesday, lifting the company's market capitalization above $4.5 trillion, CNBC reports. The stock has already added about 39% since the beginning of the year, reflecting Nvidia's leadership at the center of the global AI boom. Citi raised its target on the stock to $210, noting accelerating infrastructure spending following the announced OpenAI projects.

Last week, OpenAI said that Nvidia will invest up to $100 billion and build data centers worth hundreds of billions of dollars. In addition, OpenAI and Oracle announced five giant data centers worth $500 billion as part of the Stargate project, which will be powered by hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs. According to CEO Jensen Huang, the company's products account for about 70% of the cost of the new AI center.

Nvidia isn't just benefiting from OpenAI: Meta and Google are also dramatically increasing capacity spending. Nvidia's partner, cloud provider CoreWeave, struck a $14.2 billion deal with Meta.

Alphabet shares ended the quarter with growth of 38% - the best result since 2005, writes Bloomberg. Since the beginning of the year, the securities have added almost 30%, which is significantly higher than the growth of the Nasdaq 100 index (+17%). The company's capitalization briefly exceeded $3 trillion and is now valued at about $2.93 trillion.

Investors increased optimism after the antitrust decision, avoiding the harshest measures, including the possible sale of the Chrome browser. Quarterly reports provided additional impetus, with demand for AI products supporting sales. Alphabet also announced the launch of AI-powered visual search, and The Information reports on Meta's talks to use its AI models for advertising.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov was attempted to be poisoned in the spring of 2018, he said in an interview with podcast host Lex Friedman. According to the billionaire, it could have been done by his neighbor, who "left something at the door" of his house, after which Durov became ill, "his body began to fail, all accompanied by acute pain." "It was the only moment in my life when I seemed to be dying," the messenger founder said.

Durov added that he didn't inform his team about the incident at the time because he didn't want to worry the team - it was raising funds for the TON cryptocurrency at the time, and in parallel, several countries were trying to block Telegram.

Taiwan will not agree to a US proposal to share semiconductor production "fifty-fifty," Vice Premier Cheng Lijun said after returning from talks in Washington, Yahoo Finance reported. She emphasized that such a topic has not been discussed and Taipei will not give such a commitment.

The U.S. now imposes a 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese exports, and talks are aimed at reducing it.

Although TSMC is building $165 billion worth of plants in Arizona, the main production will remain on the island, where the core of global capacity in contract chipmaking is concentrated, the agency points out. Taiwan is hoping for more favorable tariff treatment in the U.S., with the vice premier noting that "detailed consultations" have brought some progress, but did not disclose specific details.

- Japan's broad Topix index was falling by 1.4%. Benchmark Nikkei 225 - by 0.91%.

- In South Korea, the Kospi index rose 0.77%, while the Kosdaq small-company index rose 0.36%.

- Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.17%.

- Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.49 percent, the S&P 500 was down 0.43 percent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.37 percent.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor