Losses for health insurers helped keep the market’s gains in check, though. They fell as uncertainty remains about whether Washington will extend expiring health care tax credits, a sticking point on Capitol Hill that’s created the longest-ever shutdown for the U.S. government.
President Donald Trump suggested in a social media post over the weekend that cash being sent to “money sucking” insurance companies should instead go directly to people so they can buy their own health insurance.
Besides the pain at airports, the U.S. government’s shutdown has also delayed important reports on the economy. A resumption could upset financial markets if the released logjam shows data that dashes traders’ expectations for coming cuts to interest rates.
Without updates from the U.S. government on jobs and the economy, traders have instead been trawling profit reports from companies for clues about how things are going.
Roughly four out of every five companies in the S&P 500 that have reported their results for the summer have also topped analysts’ profit expectations so far, according to FactSet. Companies usually beat analysts’ estimates each quarter, but the pressure was high this time around because they needed to justify the big moves upward for their stock prices since April.
Delivering bigger profits is one of the easier ways companies can quiet criticism that their stock prices have become too expensive.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rallied across much of Europe and Asia.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.10% from 4.11% late Friday.
