Stock Market Today: Live Updates

Shares in Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly fell in pre-market trading on Wednesday after Roche published promising early-stage trial data for its latest obesity treatment candidate.

Shares of Novo and Eli Lilly, the maker of the drug Wegobee and Zepbound, both fell more than 3% in premarket trading.

Switzerland’s Roche said in the first phase that the experimental once-daily pill led to an average 6.1 percent weight loss within four weeks, when adjusted for a placebo, in obese patients without type 2 diabetes. The drug candidate grew out of the company’s acquisition of Calmot Therapeutics, which closed earlier this year.

— Alex Harring and Karen Gilchrist

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek that he would allow Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to complete his term if elected in November.

“I would let him serve out his term, especially if I think he’s doing the right thing,” Trump told Bloomberg. Powell is serving his second four-year term as Fed chair, which ends in early 2026.

Powell first became Fed chair in 2018 and has long faced criticism from then-President Trump over his interest rate policy.

As recently as February, President Trump told Fox Business that he had no intention of reappointing Powell as Fed chair.

Darla Mercado

A rally in small-cap stocks on Tuesday helped push the Russell 2000 to its most overbought daily value among major U.S. stock indexes, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

“History was made today. The Russell 2000 Index closed 4.4 standard deviations above its 50-day moving average. No other major US index (Dow since 1900, S&P 500 since 1928, Nasdaq since 1971) has closed at such extreme levels,” the company said in a post on X.

The Russell index rose 3.5% during Tuesday’s trading session, marking a fifth straight day of gains, as investors flocked to small-cap stocks on hopes that interest rate cuts would improve borrowing conditions for small caps.

Pia Singh