A congressional deal is still the most likely scenario, said Art Hogan, head of product strategy for equity research at Lazard Capital Markets. But " in the back of most traders' minds is 'what if?'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_government_shutdown_of_1995

The last shutdown was....Nov 14 through Nov 19, 1995 and from Dec 16, 1995 to Jan 6, 1996, for a total of 28 days.

teeth53      ( Date: 23-Sep-2013 22:27) Posted: U.S. living on borrow debt again...?. Unanswered questions weighing on the Investors. Chief among them: When will Federal Reserve finally begin cutting back on its monthly $85 billion bond-buying program?. Will the U.S. government shut down on Oct. 1 or default on its debt? How a shutdown could affect the economy teeth53 thot - Anything can happen during d last hours, in order to save the day.

Stocks: Holding onto record highs

U.S. stocks were expected to open little changed as investors await for more corporate results and Bernanke comments.   More

" North American supply to grow by 3.9 million barrels per day from 2012 to 2018, or nearly two-thirds of total forecast non-OPEC supply growth of 6 [million barrels per day]. World liquid production capacity is expected to grow by 8.4 [million barrels per day] – significantly faster than demand – which is projected to expand by 6.9 [million barrels per day]. Global refining capacity will post even steeper growth, surging by 9.5 [million barrels per day], led by China and the Middle East."

Booming North American oil production is reshaping world markets and will help satisfy the growing thirst for oil in the developing world, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Is sending ripples throughout the world.

IEA Exe Director. Maria van  der Hoeven. " This is helping to ease a market that was relatively tight for several years."

The past 3mths have certainly been a tumultuous time in the forex mkts, but for equity traders, there's hasn't been a better time to be in the markets!, for some investors to believe how stocks could be doing so well given the current state of the global economy, and to understand why investors are buying equities and selling currencies.

While US data has improved, the performance of the US economy has been less than outstanding, and there are plenty of reasons why central banks still view the recovery with skepticism. then, it's this same level of skepticism that has helped equities perform so well b'cos improvement in mkt sentiment is exactly what central banks have been trying to achieve.

Federal Reserve and its counterparts around the world are still engaged in aggressive monetary easing, and in doing so, they are pushing the return in bond investments lower and driving investors into riskier assets like equities.

Combine that with the initial evidence of a stronger US recovery and problems in Europe and we can understand why investors are buying stocks so aggressively.

See also: 4 Catalysts for Renewed Risk Aversion

See related: The New Epicenter for Eurozone Problems

Watch for upbeat U.S. economic data...good news n as well as bad news.

Stocks wrapped up one of the best weeks of the yr. Dow Jones industrial average  & S& P 500 closed higher for the 6th straight trading day and ended the wk up more than +2%.