Photo credit: Rymden - stock.adobe.com.This report comes from Yahoo! Finance.
U.S. stocks faltered on Tuesday, Sept. 30 as investors weighed the likely fallout of President Donald Trump’s latest tariff blitz and the U.S. government careened toward its first shutdown in seven years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led losses, falling around 0.4%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) slid around 0.3%, coming off modest closing gains on Wall Street (as of noon CT, Sept. 30).
Markets are bracing for a government shutdown after Trump and Republicans met with Democrats in the Oval Office on Monday but failed to strike a deal to avert a halt to funding. “I think we’re headed to a shutdown,” Vice President JD Vance said after the meeting.
Lawmakers have until 12:01 a.m. ET Wednesday to reach a last-gasp agreement or see the first stoppage since 2019. Odds of a shutdown are near 85%, according to Polymarket.
For Wall Street, the concern is that the government’s economic data releases will halt during a stoppage. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will “completely cease operations” if it happens, the Department of Labor said, likely delaying the release of Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report among other top-tier data crucial to the Federal Reserve’s policy setting.
A JOLTS update on September job openings released Tuesday could be the last labor market insight from BLS for some time. The report showed job openings rose more than expected. Hiring slowed and layoffs dropped, consistent with the “low-hire, low-fire” market that has taken shape in recent months.
In other economic data, an update on consumer confidence showed the Conference Board’s measure dropping to its lowest point since April, in the throes of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff salvos. Consumers expressed a dim outlook on the job market in particular, the report said.
Meanwhile, Trump sent out a fresh flurry of tariffs on lumber, timber, and certain types of furniture late Monday, hot on the heels of a threat of levies on foreign-made movies and last week’s plan to put 100% duties on branded drugs. Concerns are growing about the impact on the global economy from Trump’s ever-expanding trade offensive, after new data showed China and Japan’s factories are still caught in a slump.
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