Congress is not expected to reach a compromise, an

Barron’s pointed out that the U.S. Congress is not expected to reach a compromise or pass a plan to keep the government running before the start of the new fiscal year on October 1. A number of factors appear to be eroding confidence that lawmakers can reach a deal by the end of next week. While government shutdowns reflect how partisanship and grandstanding hamper U.S. politics, they tend not to cause much disruption to markets. After all, they have become relatively common, do not last long, only non-essential services are stopped, and furloughed employees are paid in full by the government once normal operations resume. However, this does not mean that the government shutdown is a completely irrelevant matter. Historical data before and after the previous 19 government shutdowns show that the S&P 500 tends to decline in the week before a shutdown, a pattern that has become more pronounced since 1995.