Stocks looked set to trade in the green yet again on Monday, as investors continued to shrug off the ongoing government shutdown.
Futures tracking the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 52 points, or 0.1%, and contracts tied to the S&P 500 were up 0.3%. Both indexes hit record closing highs on Friday, notching six-day winning streaks in the process. Nasdaq 100 futures were 0.4% higher.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note ticked up 4 basis points to 4.16%. The U.S. Dollar climbed 0.4% against a weighted basket of its peers, and gold futures jumped 1.2% to a record $3,955 an ounce.
Benchmark oil prices jumped 1.5% after the OPEC+ cartel opted for a more modest production hike than forecasters were expecting. Bitcoin was down 0.9% to $123,559, having hit a record high over the weekend.
It doesn’t look like Congress will be able to resolve the government shutdown anytime soon. Markets are likely to be starved of key economic data until the funding impasse ends, having already missed out on the monthly nonfarm payrolls report on Friday. If the shutdown drags on past Oct. 15, consumer-price inflation data won’t be published either.
“The data vacuum means that participants have little to nothing to latch onto in terms of a trading theme or narrative right now,” Michael Brown, research strategist at the foreign-exchange brokerage Pepperstone, said. “Trading conditions have become rather choppy, with most major assets trading in rather listless and rudderless fashion; there doesn’t seem to be much sign of that changing any time soon.”
One item on the calendar that could move markets is the release of Federal Reserve minutes from the September meeting, which could give a better idea of where interest rates are headed. Still, most of the Fed’s key policymakers have spoken since the central bank cut borrowing costs by a quarter-point last month.