Investors Not Bothered by Shutdown

With the government withholding money from all but its necessary functions, you’d think the financial markets would be freaking out appropriately. You’d be wrong. The Dow Jones Industrial Average actually rose 76.10 points on Friday, and the 30-stock average declined just 1.2 percent over the course of the week. Investors seem to see the shutdown as no big deal—yet. Many reportedly don’t think this shutdown will go on long enough to be too much of a problem and are counting on the Fed to keep the economy going. But the debt-ceiling battle in a couple of weeks could cause problems. Said the president this week, “When you have a situation in which a faction is willing potentially to default on U.S. government obligations, then we are in trouble.”