Shutdown talk is nowhere on Wall Street, which gets less animated by local economy stories anyway and has also started to tune out Washington chaos — for better or worse.
Stock indexes closed higher Monday, brushing off worries that mass layoffs could hit consumer spending or that a shutdown would preempt the release of Friday’s September jobs report. Shutdowns tend to be relative non-events, economically — the longest on record, in 2018, shaved an estimated $3 billion off a then-$21 trillion economy, according to CBO — but investors may be underestimating this one.
One strategist, speaking to Reuters, called it a “slow car crash that we’re all watching happen.”