Stocks were on course for gains on Monday, and gold prices were soaring as investors tried to make sense of lawmakers’ last-minute bid to prevent a government shutdown.
Futures tracking the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 116 points, or 0.3%. S&P 500 futures also rose 0.3%, and contracts tied to the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 gained 0.4%.
The dollar slid 0.2% against a weighted basket of its peers, dragged down by the shutdown worries. Gold climbed 1% to hit a record high of just under $3,849 an ounce. The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell 3 basis points to 4.15%.
The September jobs report, due Friday, could be a key event for markets this week–though it may be delayed in the event of a government shutdown, as it was in October 2013.
President Donald Trump and congressional leaders are set for 11th-hour talks on Monday. That’s ahead of an expected redo of a Senate vote that will determine if Congress will keep the government funded. If the Senate can’t pass the short-term funding stop-gap, the government will partially shut down Wednesday at 12:01 a.m.
“It appears that both sides are far from an agreement to extend government funding, which increases the chance of a shutdown,” Kathleen Brooks, research director at the foreign-exchange brokerage XTB, said. “Although stock markets have absorbed this risk well, and futures point to a higher open for both European and US indices later today, concern about a government shutdown is being expressed via the gold price.”
Even a short funding lapse could impact stocks–particularly if it delays the release of jobs numbers. A slew of speeches by Federal Reserve officials could also move the market this week, with investors still trying to figure out if the central bank will close out 2025 with two more interest-rate cuts.
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