Stocks Slip as US Shutdown Concerns Add to Risks: Markets Wrap

S&P 500 contracts slid 0.6% and those connected the Nasdaq 100 fell 0.8%, aft gains connected Wall Street Wednesday spurred by a softer-than-expected ostentation print. Europe’s Stoxx 600 scale was small changed. Asian shares retreated.

US Senate Democratic person Chuck Schumer said his enactment would artifact a Republican spending measure to avert a authorities shutdown connected Saturday and urged the GOP to judge a Democratic program to supply backing done April 11 instead. The looming showdown adds an other furniture of interest for traders already confronting a higher unemployment rate, national workforce occupation cuts and President Donald Trump’s escalating tariff war.

“The adjacent hurdle is simply a imaginable US authorities shutdown this Saturday,” said Jim Reid, planetary caput of macro probe and thematic strategy astatine Deutsche Bank AG. “We volition spot if a woody tin beryllium made. The uncertainty has possibly helped S&P and Nasdaq futures to springiness up their gains from yesterday.”

Treasuries edged higher arsenic traders looked up to caller US economical information aboriginal Thursday, with readings connected wholesale ostentation and archetypal jobless claims due. The dollar was steady. The yen strengthened aft Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said helium expects existent wages and user spending to improve.

The hazard of a US authorities shutdown comes astatine a infinitesimal erstwhile fiscal markets are hyper-sensitive to caller disruption. Two weeks of heightened marketplace volatility person already inflicted losses for investors and pushed Wall Street strategists to chopped their forecasts for US stocks, portion the Federal Reserve has adopted a diligent attack to interest-rate cuts.

“A timely pivot to taxation chopped bundle volition beryllium alternatively important for the marketplace fixed investors’ mediocre temper connected assorted tariff threats,” said Homin Lee, elder macro strategist astatine Lombard Odier. “So immoderate legislative setback similar shutdown that undermines specified anticipation could go an issue.”

Equity strategists person precocious tempered their expectations astir the US market. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. became the latest to dependable the alarm, pursuing those astatine Citigroup Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc. Earlier this week, Citi downgraded US equities to neutral from overweight portion upgrading China to overweight.