President Donald Trump suggested in a social media post over the weekend that cash being sent to “money sucking” insurance companies should instead go directly to people so they can buy their own health insurance.
Humana fell 4 per cent, and Centene dropped 9.9 per cent.
The effects of the government’s shutdown have become more apparent following the cancellations of thousands of flights over the weekend. Towers are facing shortages as some air traffic controllers — unpaid for weeks — have stopped showing up for work.
Besides the pain at airports, the US government’s shutdown has also delayed important reports on the economy. A resumption could upset financial markets if the released logjam shows data that dashes traders’ expectations for coming cuts to interest rates.
The wide expectation is that the Federal Reserve will continue to cut its main interest rate in hopes of shoring up what has been a slowing job market. Wall Street loves lower interest rates because they can give the economy a boost while also pushing prices for investments upward.
But the Fed has said it may have to halt its cuts if inflation worsens because lower interest rates can give inflation more fuel.
Without updates from the US government on jobs and the economy, traders have instead been trawling profit reports from companies for clues about how things are going.
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Tyson Foods, which sells chicken and other meat, climbed 1.3 per cent after reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It benefited from increases in prices for its pork and beef of 11 per cent to 17 per cent.
Roughly four out of every five companies in the S&P 500 have also been reporting stronger profits for the summer than analysts expected, according to FactSet. Companies usually top analysts’ profit expectations each quarter, but the pressure was high this time around because they needed to justify the big moves upward for their stock prices since April.
Delivering bigger profits is one of the easier ways companies can quiet criticism that their stock prices have become too expensive.
Companies have also been giving generally strong forecasts for upcoming results, according to Bank of America strategist Savita Subramanian. That has analysts’ expectations for earnings in 2026 nearly all the way back to where they were before Trump shocked the economy and financial markets with his “Liberation Day” announcement of worldwide tariffs in April.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rallied across much of Europe and Asia.
South Korea’s Kospi jumped 3 per cent for one of the bigger gains. Chip company SK Hynix, which is cooperating with Nvidia on artificial intelligence, leaped 4.5 per cent. Its bigger rival, Samsung Electronics, climbed 2.8 per cent.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.10 per cent from 4.11 per cent late Friday.
