For weeks Americans have been told that if Congress and the White House didn't agree to a Continuing Resolution to fund the government when the new fiscal year started on October 1, an economic calamity would befall the nation.
Well, the government officially shut down at midnight Monday, and markets all around the world don't seem to care.
At press time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are up 0.13 percent in pre-market trading.
Yes, I said up.
The S&P 500 futures are up 0.16 percent. NASDAQ futures are up 0.2 percent.
European markets also don't seem to care about America's shutdown.
British stocks are down 0.4 percent, Germany's up 0.4 percent, and French shares are edging 0.5 percent higher.
Asian markets are also mixed with Japanese shares up 0.2 percent and Chinese shares up 0.68 percent. The Hong Kong market is down 1.5 percent.
Also of note is gold which is down almost $30 an ounce. If traders around the world thought an American shutdown was going to cause an economic catastrophe, gold would be rising.
Clearly, traders aren't buying all the hysteria about this shutdown. CNBC.com confirmed that about an hour ago:
U.S. stock index futures ticked higher on Tuesday, as markets appeared to shrug off the U.S. government shutdown, with demand for riskier assets like equities little changed.
"This morning, the risk tone improves somewhat, as investors take the view that a partial shutdown, if resolved quickly, will do little damage to the overall health of the U.S. economy," said Joe Rundle, head of trading at ETX Capital.
It appears much like all the hysteria about the sequester harming the economy, a temporary shutdown of the government isn't fazing Wall Street.
But don't expect the media to change its hysterical tune.
