Financial markets are likely to treat a potential government shutdown as temporary noise. Such events do not typically reprice the fundamental path of corporate earnings, inflation, or Federal Reserve policy, which remain the dominant drivers of asset performance. Investors will likely look past the disruption.
Investors should not over-react to congressional turbulence. Many of the most market-relevant policies—on trade, regulation, industrial strategy, and AI—are executed via executive authority, not congressional action. This means their trajectory is unlikely to be altered by events like a shutdown or shifting political dynamics in Congress.
Historically, the aggregate macroeconomic effects of government shutdowns are modest and reversible. A useful rule of thumb is that each week of a full shutdown reduces annualized quarterly GDP by just 0.1%. A partial shutdown, which is more likely, would have an even smaller impact on growth.