The U.S. Senate passed a short-term funding bill to keep the government running past the election. Congress waited until the last possible moment to prevent a crisis they created by not doing their actual job months ago. Retail traders immediately checked their portfolios to see if this meant anything for their positions. It didn't.
A short-term funding bill means they kicked the problem down the road. They'll do this again in a few months. Then again after that. The technical term for this governing strategy is "my dog ate my homework but I'm 67 years old and make $174,000 a year."
Some guy in Delaware just liquidated his entire Roth IRA because he read "shutdown" and "election" in the same headline. He's now sitting on $14,000 in cash waiting for the collapse. The S&P 500 moved up 0.3% that day. He'll buy back in at all-time highs in six months and tell his wife it was always part of the plan.
The bill passed before the election because shutting down the government during an election makes voters angry. Shutting it down after the election is fine because nobody remembers anything that happens more than three days ago. This is the same strategy used by companies that release earnings reports on Friday afternoons.
Congress has now successfully avoided approximately 47 shutdowns since 2010 by passing short-term funding bills at the last second. They celebrate each time like they cured cancer. The technical charts don't care. Your moving averages don't care. The 200-day simple moving average has never once asked whether the government was funded.
Every senator who voted yes will now tweet about bipartisanship and working across the aisle. Every senator who voted no will tweet about fiscal responsibility. All of them will be back in three months doing the exact same thing while you're trying to figure out why your Tesla calls expired worthless.
Photo by Louis Velazquez on Unsplash
Leave a Comment