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Nvidia would be blocked from selling advanced chips to China under a bipartisan bill that US senators introduced on Thursday as part of an effort to make it harder for Beijing to obtain critical American AI-related technology.

The Secure and Feasible Exports Chips Act would require the commerce secretary to deny export licences for advanced chips to China for 30 months. The bill would prevent Nvidia from selling the H200 and Blackwell, its most advanced chip, to China.

It comes as the White House weighs whether to allow Nvidia to export the H200 to China — a possibility that has alarmed some officials.

Pete Ricketts, the Republican chair of the Senate foreign relations east Asia sub-committee, who co-sponsored the legislation with Chris Coons, the top Democrat on the panel, said the US was leading in the artificial intelligence race with China largely because of its “dominance of global compute power”.

“Denying Beijing access to these chips is therefore essential,” Ricketts said. “Codifying President Trump’s current AI chip limitations on Communist China as US chip companies continue to rapidly innovate will allow us to widen our compute lead exponentially.”

Coons said: “The rest of the 21st century will be determined by who wins the AI race, and whether this technology is built on American values of free thought and free markets or the values of the Chinese Communist party.”

Other senators sponsoring the bill are Republicans Tom Cotton and Dave McCormick and Democrats Jeanne Shaheen and Andy Kim.

The bill comes as China hawks in Washington fear Donald Trump is ignoring security issues to preserve the trade deal he agreed with Chinese President Xi Jinping in October.

The FT reported on Wednesday that the US Treasury had halted plans to impose sanctions on China’s Ministry of State Security spy agency over “Salt Typhoon”, a massive cyber penetration of American telecom groups.

US officials said the administration did not plan to issue any big new export controls on China for the time being.

China would benefit greatly from access to Nvidia’s H200 chips, said Saif Khan, a chips expert at the Institute for Progress think-tank.

“Unfettered access to the H200 would allow China to build frontier-scale AI supercomputers to develop the most powerful AI systems, just at a moderately higher cost relative to cutting-edge Blackwell chips,” said Khan, a former White House and commerce department official.

“It would also arm Chinese cloud providers to compete globally with US hyperscalers.”

Nvidia chief Jensen Huang was in Washington on Wednesday and met Trump and Republican senators on the banking committee. Ahead of the meeting with the committee, he said Beijing would not accept degraded chips and that US companies should be able to export their most competitive chips to China.

John Kennedy, a Republican senator on the committee, told reporters Huang was not a “credible source” on what the US should export to China.

“He’s got more money than the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and he wants even more,” Kennedy said, according to the Associated Press.

“If I’m looking for someone to give me objective advice about whether we should make our technology available to China, he’s not it,” he added.

Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist in the first Trump administration who is influential in the Maga movement, said the US should not be exporting advanced chips to China, particularly as Chinese companies such as DeepSeek have made such advances in AI.

“If this is in fact a ‘Sputnik Moment’ because of DeepSeek then we should ban all chip sales, especially high-end, but also stop all financial support — no access to debt or equity capital markets, no training, no Chinese students — just like in the cold war about nuclear weapons,” Bannon said.

He also took aim at Huang and David Sacks, the White House AI adviser who backs selling high-end chips to China as part of an AI “action plan” to make countries reliant on the American “technology stack”.

“David Sacks has acted as the agent for the Chinese Communist party and Jensen Huang is the arms merchant,” Bannon said.

Asked about the bill, Nvidia said the AI action plan “wisely recognises non-military businesses everywhere should be able to choose the American technology stack, promoting US jobs and promoting national security”.

In response to Bannon’s comment, the company said: “AI is not an atomic bomb. No one should have an atomic bomb. Everyone should have AI.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

(Bloomberg) — A rally that put the stock market within a striking distance of its all-time highs struggled to gain a whole lot of traction ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve decision. Bitcoin halted its rebound. Bonds fell.

The S&P 500 barely budged. Bets on a Fed reduction remained intact despite a slide in jobless claims — a noisy reading that captured the Thanksgiving period. Meta Platforms Inc. jumped about 3.5% as Bloomberg News reported executives are considering budget cuts for the metaverse group. A gauge of small caps climbed almost 1%.

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Worries that the frenzy around artificial-intelligence has gone too far caused a recent wobble in equities. But the strong outlook for the sector and wagers that policy easing will fuel corporate profits bolstered hopes on further gains.

“The key question hanging over markets is whether a potential Federal Reserve rate cut next week can trigger a so-called Santa rally,” said Fawad Razaqzada at Forex.com. “For now, the S&P 500 forecast remains cautiously constructive, albeit with more hesitancy creeping in.”

The pattern for the first couple of weeks of December could prove far “choppier” than the last part of the month, noted Mark Newton at Fundstrat Global Advisors. With bets on a December rate cut rising to near certainty, he said we’re gradually seeing sectors like industrials, financials and small caps climbing.

The S&P 500 closed near 6,860. The yield on 10-year Treasuries rose four basis points to 4.1%. The dollar fluctuated. Bitcoin dropped below $93,000.

Given the equity market’s snapback from late November, technicals have improved to match some of the bullish seasonality thought possible for this month, Newton added. While trends are bullish, he says technicals support further choppiness until after the Fed decision.

“The market’s ‘risk-on’ light is on, led by expectations for a Fed rate cut next week and a broadening rotation down-cap,” said Craig Johnson at Piper Sandler. “But we still anticipate more ‘backing and filling’ as the major indices approach their year-to-date highs.”

While the S&P 500 has made limited progress so far this week, several previously broken levels have now been reclaimed, reinforcing the impression that the bulls maintain a degree of control, noted Razaqzada.

To Matt Maley at Miller Tabak, while the market has spent the past few days consolidating gains, the set-up is a good one.

“So unless we get a big reversal over the next few trading days, the advantage will definitely be with the bulls,” he said.

Maley notes that one area that could do well if we get a strong year-end rally is the small-cap space.

“A push to a new significant all-time high might finally attract the kind of momentum money that could help this part of the stock market outperform,” he said. “Of course, if the mega-cap tech stocks start to roll over in a big way, all bets will be off.”

At Interactive Brokers, Jose Torres noted that the cyclically oriented Russell 2000 is sustaining its recent momentum and is poised to rally in an environment of looser financial conditions alongside a still solid economy.

While the US tech sector is likely to remain a key driver for the market’s next leg up, its recent underperformance also points to other compelling opportunities across the market, according to Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi at UBS Global Wealth Management.

“As we expect US equities to rally into 2026, we think under-allocated investors should add exposure,” she said. “Beyond the tech sector, we expect a good performance from the health care, utilities, and banking sectors to broaden the foundation for further gains.”

Hoffmann-Burchardi says the Fed’s easing path is supportive to equities and also creates a positive backdrop for quality bonds.

On the macro front, applications for US unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest in more than three years, indicating that employers are still largely holding onto workers despite a wave of recent layoffs.

Separate data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed announced layoffs at US companies fell last month after surging in October, but were still the highest for any November in three years.

“Overall, the net takeaway from the data served to confirm the crosscurrents evident in the labor landscape,” said Ian Lyngen at BMO Capital Markets.

Policymakers will not yet have the government’s November jobs report in hand for their meeting next week. The report, originally due Dec. 5, was delayed until Dec. 16 as a result of the record-long government shutdown. That release will also include October payrolls figures.

“There remain some negative payroll employment readings. But the US labor market is not collapsing based on timely data and reports that have leading indicator properties,” said Don Rissmiller at Strategas. “We continue to believe the Fed will cut the fed funds rate again by 25 basis points in December.”

While investors are largely betting policymakers will cut rates again, officials have rarely been so divided as many still prefer leaving rates elevated to keep inflation in check.

Before their final policy meeting of the year, Fed officials will get a dated reading on their preferred inflation gauge. On Friday, the September income and spending report — long delayed because of the government shutdown — is due to be released.

The figures will include the personal consumption expenditures price index and a core measure that excludes food and energy. Economists project a third-straight 0.2% increase in the core index. That would keep the year-over-year figure hovering just below 3%, a sign that inflationary pressures are stable, yet sticky.

“We continue to expect two rate cuts by the end of the first quarter of 2026, with Friday’s personal consumption expenditure index likely to show price pressures under control,” said Hoffmann-Burchardi at UBS Global Wealth Management.

Corporate Highlights:

Meta Platforms Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg is expected to meaningfully cut resources for building the so-called metaverse, an effort that he once framed as the future of the company and the reason for changing its name from Facebook Inc. Meta Platforms risks a temporary European Union ban on the rollout of new policies over how its AI features in WhatsApp, after being hit by the latest probe into Big Tech’s alleged dominance on the continent. Salesforce Inc. gave an outlook for revenue in the current period that topped analysts’ estimates, suggesting the software company is persuading customers to buy its AI tools. Snowflake Inc.’s forecast for sales and profit margin in the current quarter raised concerns the company isn’t yet making enough money from its AI-based tools. Dollar General Corp. raised its full-year outlook, showing how value-focused retailers are winning over consumers hunting for deals. Kroger Co. lowered the top end of its full-year sales forecast, sounding a note of caution that competition is intensifying among food sellers for increasingly discerning consumers. PepsiCo Inc. is nearing a settlement agreement with activist investor Elliott Investment Management, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, without providing details. Paramount Skydance Corp. accused Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. of failing to conduct a fair auction, saying the film and TV company isn’t acting in its shareholders’ best interests. Versant Media Group Inc., the company being spun off from Comcast Corp., is making acquisitions to diversify beyond its core business of cable-TV networks. Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Montreal and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce all beat estimates on results that included strong performance in their capital-markets businesses, continuing a trend seen across other Canadian lenders and wrapping up a year marked by buoyant markets and more advisory work. Novo Nordisk A/S left open the door for additional work on its pill version of Ozempic for Alzheimer’s disease after a pair of failed trials, saying that patients showed a biological response in a handful of areas despite getting no cognitive improvement. Stellantis NV touted promising signs of a turnaround at its Ram and Jeep brands after adding powerful engines and more options for vehicles without a plug. Volkswagen AG plans to convert its small-scale assembly plant in Dresden into an innovation hub after stopping car output, following through on a pledge to avoid factory closures in Germany. Rio Tinto Group’s new chief executive will focus on cutting costs and selling assets in a bid to turn the world’s second largest miner into a slimmed-down operation centered primarily on iron ore and copper. Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

The S&P 500 rose 0.1% as of 4 p.m. New York time The Nasdaq 100 was little changed The Dow Jones Industrial Average was little changed The MSCI World Index rose 0.3% Bloomberg Magnificent 7 Total Return Index rose 0.5% The Russell 2000 Index rose 0.8% Meta rose 3.4% Currencies

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed The euro fell 0.2% to $1.1644 The British pound fell 0.2% to $1.3329 The Japanese yen was little changed at 155.10 per dollar Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin fell 1.3% to $92,459.23 Ether fell 0.8% to $3,139.48 Bonds

The yield on 10-year Treasuries advanced four basis points to 4.10% Germany’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 2.77% Britain’s 10-year yield declined one basis point to 4.43% Commodities

West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.3% to $59.71 a barrel Spot gold rose 0.2% to $4,210.02 an ounce ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.