The government runs out of money–again–at midnight on December 11.
The House of Representative plans to vote on Wednesday, today, on a continuing resolution that would extend spending for seven days at current levels. The Senate will take up that bill after the House vote. And assuming that no senator uses any of that chamber’s arcane rules to delay the vote, Congress will have averted a shutdown by the slimmest of margins.
That schedule leaves scant room (call it “None”) for lawmakers to agree on a new coronavirus stimulus and relief bill in time to attack it to the government spending bill.
The increasingly pessimistic news on a new coronavirus bill as the day advanced pushed stocks lower. The Standard & Poor’s 500 finished down 0.79%. The index opened at 3703.43 and sank steadily through the day to a low of 3661.72 before moving up to close at 3672.82.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the day down 0.35%. Technology stocks were the biggest lowers with the NASDAQ Composite off 1.94% at the close and the NASDAQ 100 lower at the end of the day by 2.15%.
The small cap Russell 2000 lost 0.82% and the iShare MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) dropped 0.86%.
