There are some signs of progress on the US government shutdown and I’m optimistic it will end on the weekend but for now we wait. That means that a second non-farm payrolls report is going to be missed, leaving the Fed and markets with a big blind spot at a critical time.

S&P 500 futures are down 0.5% as tech stocks struggle. Part of that is a report saying the US is blocking chip exports to China. The rally in NVDA late last month was at least partly due to reports that the Trump admin would drop some chip-selling restrictions. NVDA is down 1.3% in the pre-market.

The highlight on the economic calendar today is the Canadian jobs report, which is likely to show a hangover from the +60.4K reading last month. The consensus is -2.5K with unemployment steady at 7.1%.

Later, we get the November US consumer sentiment report from The Conference Board.