Scott Horsley

China agreed to end its boycott of U.S.

soybeans and pause export limits on rare earth minerals after a meeting this week between President Trump and his Chinese counterpart.

Trump agreed to lower some tariffs, although imports from China are still being taxed at nearly 50 percent.

The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point this week, but cast doubt on whether rates will fall further in December.

For the week, both the Dow and the S&P 500 index rose more than seven-tenths of a percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq jumped two and a quarter percent.

Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

Both Amazon and Apple reported better than expected sales and profits for the most recent quarter.

Amazon's results were boosted by the strong performance of its cloud computing service.

Apple reported solid demand for its latest iPhone, which went on sale last month.

Chipmaker Nvidia's CEO met today with South Korea's president while visiting that country for the big Asia-Pacific summit.

South Korea plans to buy Nvidia chips as part of its artificial intelligence campaign.

Treasury Secretary Scott Besson has put some numbers behind China's pledge to end its boycott of U.S.

soybeans.

Besson says China will buy 25 million tons of U.S.

beans in each of the next three years, similar to what it was doing before the latest trade war.

Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

Investors are optimistic that an expected meeting this week between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will lead to a ratcheting down of trade tensions between the world's two biggest economies.

Trump held a friendly meeting today with the new prime minister of Japan.

Amazon says it's cutting some 14,000 corporate jobs as it leans more heavily on artificial intelligence.

Amazon is a financial supporter of NPR.