The U.S. is just days from a federal government shutdown at 12:01 a.m. ET on Sunday. If history repeats itself, the lapse in funding could actually set the stock market up for short-term gains. As of Thursday afternoon, lawmakers on Capitol Hill remained at an impasse over a budget resolution to keep federal agencies running beyond the end of the government's fiscal year on Saturday.
The US Capitol in Washington, DC, on September 26, 2023. Millions of Americans braced on September 25, 2023, for pay and welfare checks to stop within days as Congress careened toward a damaging government shutdown, with Republican right wingers blocking attempts to pass a budget. Four months after barely avoiding the more serious prospect of a credit default, the world's largest economy is once again on the verge of a convulsion, with the lights due to go out at the weekend. The U.S.