Congress reminds me of Chickens, too.

They passed the one big beautiful spending bill but never appropriated the funds. That’s like getting chickens with no coop to put them in. And just like a predator would sweep up and eat those chickens… Democrats can use what little leverage they have to extract new spending priorities.

What’s a Trillion Between Friends?

In 2019, the Fed spent $5.47 trillion. By 2024, that jumped to $6.75 trillion.

A government shutdown won’t fix that problem. That’s what the last 17 since 1981 showed us.

Essential spending like defense, national debt payments, and transfer payments don’t stop.

Sure, the President can use a shutdown to cut departments and other spending while everybody’s out of town. But I don’t think congress will let him.

We’ve already seen Congress push agencies to rehire fired people during the Doge days of Winter. And with an election next year, they’re not likely to let Trump fire even more government workers during a shutdown.

I expect a quick resolution.

That doesn’t mean a shutdown won’t happen. But if it does, it will end.

Here’s what the market normally does: Prior to the shutdown, we see uncertainty. That moves the VIX up which makes options more expensive. If a shutdown starts, stocks may see a downward bias. But once it’s all over, we’ll probably get new highs.

So, what do I expect?

I think Congress will come up with some sort of cheap and easy resolution relatively fast, and stocks will go up.

I’ll talk about this more tomorrow on our State of the Market live show. You can check it out here.

In the meantime, my recommendation is to use this uncertainty to snatch up some cheap shares of your favorite stocks.