Wall Street indexes close higher with quarterly and monthly gains even as US government shutdown looms

Wall Street indexes close higher with quarterly and monthly gains even as US government shutdown looms

By Sinéad Carew and Niket Nishant

Tue September 30, 2025 4:59 PM  

It was a mixed bag today with all of the indexes spending most of the day in the red before rallying around 1:30 to regain all the lost ground and even close modestly up. But to end Q3, it was almost all upbeat news with the S&P and Dow with five straight monthly gains and the Dow and Nasdaq with two quarters of gains. The Dow was down some 200 twice during the session but the others stayed pretty close to the vest until 1:30. Although yesterday’s trading indicated that investors weren’t particularly concerned about tonight’s potential shutdown, today sentiment changed with more serious concerns that this particular shutdown could cause considerable damage to the economy.  

As today’s expert put it, “it’s a very balanced market that could be tipped either way very quickly.” The good news that got mixed in was a marginal increase in job openings and layoffs declined (but so did hiring.) The S&P had its biggest Q3 gain since 2020 and the biggest September gain in 15 years, the Dow its biggest September gain since 2019. This was all in a month that is historically a down month so pity any one who shorted the markets this month. There are considerable concerns that there will be no jobs report on Friday if there is a shutdown. At 18.56 billion, volume was very close to the 18.38 4-week average.   

DJ: 46,316.07  +68.78       NAS: 22,591.15  +107.09      S&P: 6,661.21  +17.51        9/29

DJ: 43,397.89  +81.82       NAS: 22,660.01  +68.86        S&P: 6,688.46  +27.25        9/30

Tue 9-30-25 4:59 pm Wall Street indexes close higher with quarterly and monthly gains even as US government shutdown looms | Reuters