Stock Markets Boosted With Shutdown End in Sight. Why Volatility Is Just Beginning.

(Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images)

The government shutdown finally looks to be coming to an end but stock market volatility may only just be getting started.

The Senate took a major step toward reopening the government late Sunday, advancing a funding bill at the 15th time of asking. There are still key hurdles to clear, including a full Senate vote and a House vote, but it paves the way for an end to the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

The breakthrough will be a well-timed boost for the stock market after last week’s brutal tech selloff—the Nasdaq Composite fell 3% amid fears over the artificial-intelligence boom.

After 40 days of impasse, the fallout has started to have a big impact on Americans in recent days. Consumer sentiment, which typically slumps in a shutdown, fell to near-record lows Friday. Airline disruption spiked over the weekend as more than 10,000 U.S. flights were delayed, according to Flight Aware data. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said 15 to 20 air-traffic controllers were retiring a day.

But those two issues should quickly ease once the government reopens. Morgan Stanley also expects a boost to liquidity as the U.S. Treasury restarts its spending.

An end to the shutdown will also mean a deluge of economic data in the coming weeks as delayed jobs, inflation, and GDP readings finally see the light of the day.

There will be complications, particularly around the collection of October’s data, but significantly it should all be released in time for the Federal Reserve’s December meeting. However, those problems and the sheer volume of data released in a short space of time could ramp up volatility as investors grapple to determine what it all means for interest rates.

A rate cut may be waiting at the end of the year, but there’s a long way to go—brace for many market twists before then.

—Callum Keown

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Shutdown Takes Its Toll as Lawmakers Race to End It

Lawmakers were racing to end the now 41-day-old government shutdown, with the Senate voting 60-40 Sunday night to advance a package that would extend funding through January and set full-year funding for three other priorities, in what was being called a minibus bill. The House will also need to vote.

• Administration officials spent the weekend talking about healthcare and tariffs. President Donald Trump once again teased the idea of tariff “dividends,” naming a figure of $2,000 for each American, not counting “high income people.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday tariffs are aimed at rebalancing trade.
• Bessent said the shutdown’s economic effects are getting “worse and worse.” It could eat into U.S. economic growth by as much as half, after two strong quarters of growth at the start of the Trump administration. Cargo delayed by the shutdown could lead to shortages, he told ABC.
• Trump also proposed giving money directly to Americans for them to decide on healthcare, rather than funneling it to commercial insurers as subsidies for plans under the Affordable Care Act. A fight over extending those subsidies is the main sticking point in the shutdown impasse.
• Trump said he would work with both parties on healthcare after the shutdown ends. Trump cited booming health insurer stocks as proof they are the ones benefiting from the health plans, citing Paragon Health Institute research that the stocks have risen 1,032% since 2010.

What’s Next: Bessent said the administration doesn’t have a formal proposal before the Senate on healthcare. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he would give 48 hour notice for members to return to D.C. for a vote. He told them last week they could stay in their home districts until Nov. 16.

—Liz Moyer

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Air Travel Nightmares Worsen As Government Shutdown Lingers

Americans are heading toward the Thanksgiving holidays facing a potential air travel nightmare brought on by the shutdown. Sunday was no exception: By early evening more than 9,000 flights were delayed in the U.S., and more than 2,500 were canceled as air-traffic control staffing issues persisted.

• The disruptions included hundreds of flights at major hubs such as Newark Liberty and LaGuardia International Airports in the NYC area, Chicago O’Hare, and Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, according to FlightAware.com. Carriers most affected included the big four: Delta, American, United, and Southwest Airlines.
• For the weekend as a whole, more than 23,000 flights have been delayed and 5,000 flights have been canceled as of Sunday evening, according to FlightAware. Federal aviation regulators ordered flights cut at some 40 major airports across the country.
• Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told Fox News Sunday that things will get worse. He sees air travel slowing “to a trickle” if the shutdown continues. Some of the flight disruptions are because Duffy ordered commercial airlines to cut 10% of their flights amid air-traffic control staffing issues.
• Southwest, American, Delta, and United are all notifying affected passengers of flight cancellations, explaining that they are complying with FAA requirements, and offering to refund fares or rebook travel without fees.

What’s Next: Duffy has been trying to hire air-traffic controllers, who were short-staffed even before the shutdown. They are essential government employees who have to work but aren’t getting paid during the shutdown. About 15 to 20 are retiring daily, Duffy said, up from four a day before the shutdown.

—Janet H. Cho and Liz Moyer

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TSMC Sales Growth Slows. What That Means for the AI Trade.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing , Nvidia’s key chip supplier, just reported its slowest rate of monthly sales growth in more than 18 months. Some might think this is a sign the artificial-intelligence trade is coming to an end, but it’s not.

• TSMC reported October revenue of 367.47 billion New Taiwan dollars ($11.86 billion). While that’s a monthly record for the Taiwanese chip manufacturer, the 17% growth from the same month last year is the slowest pace of annual growth TSMC has registered since February 2024.
• That’s likely to fuel speculation about whether the boom in demand for AI hardware is slowing. TSMC is the main supplier of chips to Nvidia, and also makes the core processors inside Apple iPhones, Qualcomm mobile chipsets, and processors made by Advanced Micro Devices.
• But one month’s figures shouldn’t cause panic, with the numbers potentially affected by order timing. TSMC doesn’t issue commentary alongside its monthly report.
• The single most important customer for TSMC in the AI sector is Nvidia and the signs are of healthy demand from the chip maker. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited Taiwan over the weekend, and Taiwanese media reported that Nvidia’s orders could require TSMC to boost production of its 3-nanometer wafers at sites in Taiwan by as much as 50% a month.

What’s Next: TSMC recently raised its guidance for revenue growth this year to the middle range of 30% to 40%, from about 30% in U.S. dollar terms. The main driver of that growth is AI-related chip revenue, which the company has previously said it expects to double in 2025 and grow at a mid-40% annual rate for the next five years.

— Adam Clark

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Corning’s Bold Bid to Revive U.S. Solar Industry

At Corning’s solar energy plant in a rural Michigan facility, workers turn chunky polysilicon rocks into perfect wafers, the building blocks of solar panels. America hasn’t made them for a decade because solar is another industry the U.S. outsourced to China, which controls 97% of wafer production.

• The factory is Corning’s biggest, even bigger than the Kentucky facility that makes the glass for iPhones and Apple Watches. Corning CEO Wendell Weeks told Barron’s that solar could become its next major business line, driving at least $2.5 billion in annual sales for the company—more than auto-parts.
• Weeks aims for 15% of the U.S. wafer market. The new factory is the final link in America’s solar supply chain, allowing companies to produce fully domestic solar panels for the first time in at least a decade. Corning could produce more than one million wafers a day.
• Corning’s other growth opportunities look like much safer bets. It announced this year that it will make all of the glass for Apple iPhones and watches in the U.S., and build Microsoft’s next-generation fiberoptic network. In its latest quarter, sales jumped 58% in the division that includes data-center supplies.
• U.S. companies that have tried to compete with China in solar have repeatedly failed, because Chinese companies benefit from strong state support, lower wages, and a more advanced renewable manufacturing sector. In June, American subsidiaries of Swiss firm Meyer Burger Technology filed for bankruptcy.

What’s Next: Corning is spending $1.5 billion on the wafer plant and an expansion of solar capacity in the area. It received tax breaks and a $68 million grant from Michigan, plus benefits from the Republican tax bill. The solar operation should be cash positive in 2026.

—Avi Salzman

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Disney’s ‘Predator: Badlands’ Beats Box Office Expectations

Walt Disney’s Predator: Badlands smashed expectations for its box office debut, generating $40 million in domestic ticket sales. The showing injects some much-needed momentum for Hollywood after a “dismal” October, said Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore’s head of marketplace trends.

• Predator: Badlands’ take was more than the $25 million expected and an optimistic sign for November. Two more high-profile newcomers are scheduled next weekend— Lionsgate’s crime thriller Now You See Me: Now You Don’t and Paramount’s action adventure The Running Man.
• Fourth-quarter box office sales got off to a slow start, so studios are counting on “a very back-end driven release slate to meet expectations,” Roth senior research analyst Eric Handler recently wrote. For the industry, October’s $428 million revenue was the lowest October since 1997.
• Paramount Studios’ Regretting You sold $7.13 million in its third weekend to take second place, and third-place Universal Studios’ Black Phone 2 sold $5.3 million, Comscore said. Fourth-place Amazon MGM Studios’ Sarah’s Oil sold $4.46 million, and Fifth-place Sony Pictures Classics’ Nuremberg sold $4.15 million.
• This weekend’s domestic box office sales bring the year-to-date total to $7.17 billion, or 3.1% higher than the $6.96 billion Hollywood brought in by this time last year, according to Comscore. The biggest hit of 2025 is still A Minecraft Movie, with $423.95 million.

What’s Next: Dergarabedian said hopes are high for Universal Pictures’ Wicked: For Good and Sony Pictures’ Sisu: Road to Revenge, both opening Nov. 21, and Disney’s Zootopia 2 opening on Nov. 26, the day before Thanksgiving. Disney reports earnings on Thursday.

— Janet H. Cho

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—Newsletter edited by Liz Moyer Patrick O’Donnell, Rupert Steiner