The stock market might be flying only partially sighted but it still looks like clear skies ahead. Limited economic data and the latest legal decision over the Federal Reserve have investors increasingly confident of interest-rate cuts and continued equity gains.
The ADP jobs report is normally dismissed as an unreliable precursor to official labor market figures. However, the government shutdown means the payroll processing group’s figures on Wednesday took the spotlight in
the likely absence of the Labor Department’s jobs report. And the data were dramatic enough to fulfil the role, showing a deteriorating labor market in September and a downward revision for August.
Bad news for
job seekers is good news for a stock market eager for the Fed to keep cutting interest rates. Traders are now pricing in a 99% chance of a quarter-point reduction this month and an 87% probability of that being followed by another in December, according to the CME FedWatch tool. Cue new highs for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Another factor contributing to market
confidence was the Supreme Court’s decision that Fed governor Lisa Cook can remain in her job until at least January, in the face of President Donald Trump’s bid to remove her. While that might mean rates don’t come down as quickly—with Trump aiming to install a majority of policymakers in favor of sharply lowering borrowing costs—it also reassures the market about the principle of Fed independence.
The current buoyant mood isn’t guaranteed to last—in the absence of official data, any private-sector reading indicating significant economic weakness is likely to cause turbulence. But for now, investors are enjoying a smooth glide path for stocks even in the face of the shutdown.
—Adam Clark
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Supreme Court’s Cook Decision Complicates Trump’s Fed Plan
The Supreme Court’s decision to allow Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook to remain on the job complicates the Trump administration’s attempts to gain a majority among the Fed’s voting members and thereby wield greater influence over policy. The move is significant for a big decision by the policymakers next February.
- The High Court said Cook can stay at the central bank through at least January, deferring President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to sideline her, until the administration can make its oral arguments. Trump has been trying to fire Cook since August, and Cook has been fighting those attempts.
- Trump appointed three of the current seven board members: governors Michelle Bowman and Christopher Waller and recently confirmed Stephen Miran. Gaining Cook’s seat would have been a fourth vote. Beyond that, a wider group of 12 voting members including five regional bank presidents sets interest rates.
- Regional Fed presidents are appointed by the individual banks’ directors, but the Fed board needs to affirm them every five years, and the next decision is in February. Cook remaining appears to eliminate the possibility that a Trump-majority board could reject all of them.
- Assuming that the Supreme Court doesn’t rule right away, “this might be enough to keep [Cook] on the Board until February, when she could vote to reappoint the Regional Fed Presidents,” University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers said on X. Cook’s term runs through 2038.
What’s Next: Trump also has to choose his replacement for Jerome Powell, whose chairmanship expires in May but whose board tenure lasts until 2028. Trump has been considering names and is widely believed to have narrowed his list to three. There may be little reason to further delay naming his pick now.
—Megan Leonhardt, Matt Peterson, and Janet H. Cho
Government Shutdown Showing Signs of Lasting a While
While Republicans and Democrats continued to spar over who caused the government shutdown, attention is turning to how long things could actually stay closed. Prediction markets are putting a higher likelihood of the
shutdown spreading into at least next week. Congress also has a complicated schedule.
- The Senate won’t vote again until Friday. It’s the Senate that still has to get a bill passed. The bill has already passed the House, but Speaker Mike Johnson isn’t reconvening before Tuesday, which could delay things if the House has to
coordinate with a Senate bill.
- The prediction site Polymarket puts the likelihood of the shutdown lasting four to nine days at 35%, while it sees a 5% chance of it lasting three days or fewer. Kalshi puts 53% chances on a shutdown lasting 10 or more days, and 32% of it lasting more than 15 days.
- One big thing economists are watching is government-generated labor statistics. There won’t be a jobs report for September on Friday, nor updated wage data. With the Bureau of Labor Statistics dark, Wall Street and the Federal Reserve are turning to private sources to track the strength of the labor market.
- Jefferies analysts warned that the shutdown could prove longer and more disruptive, noting possible delayed IPOs and drug approvals. Short-term market volatility could come in interest-rate sensitive sectors, regulatory-dependent sectors, government contractors such as defense and healthcare companies, and managed care.
What’s Next: One date to watch is Oct. 15. That’s the next official date when many federal workers, many of them now furloughed, would usually get paid. The five longest shutdowns in history each began just after or ended just before such a date, note analysts with 22V Research.
—Joe Light, Nicole Goodkind, and Callum Keown
Pool of Publicly Traded U.S. Companies Is Rapidly Shrinking
Despite this year’s rush of initial public offerings and multiple record stock
market closes, the number of companies in the U.S. stock market is considerably smaller than it was just a few years ago. And investors might see the pool of publicly traded companies get even smaller.
- Not only are private companies staying private, more public companies are going private. According to World Bank statistics, the U.S. had a little more than 4,000 publicly traded companies at the end of 2024, down from nearly 8,100 public companies in 1996, the dawn of the dot-com boom.
- Videogame publisher Electronic Arts just agreed to be bought for $55 billion in a leveraged buyout led by private-equity firms, and human-resources
software firm Dayforce plans to go private. Renewable-power firm AES might be bought by BlackRock’s General Infrastructure Partners unit for $38 billion.
- Going private enables company management to focus less on the short term, when the game is trying to beat quarterly earnings expectations and raise their financial guidance. An increase in federal regulations in recent decades has made it more onerous to be a publicly traded company.
- That said, there are still reasons to go public. Trevor Burgess, CEO of Neptune Insurance, told
