Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over daily movements, we do like to keep an eye on market changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
Congress had a weekend to pull itself together and figure out a way to avoid a government shutdown before midnight tonight. But it looks like the federal government will be taking a leave of absence in just a few short hours.
Unless by some miracle lawmakers decide to pass a short-term spending bill this evening, nonessential sections of the government will close their doors for the first time in nearly two decades, a specter causing Wall Street to sell on fears of the economic ramifications. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI -0.11%) fell 128 points, or 0.8%, to end at 15,129 on Monday.
Cisco Systems (CSCO 0.06%) was the only Dow component to notch any meaningful gains, and even those were paltry for the day's performance leader. Edging up just 0.4%, Wall Street bid the stock modestly higher before its ex-dividend date tomorrow. The small boost most likely reflects investors with very short time horizons: Owners of the stock today are allowed to sell it tomorrow and still get the company's next quarterly dividend payment.
Sports apparel behemoth and Dow newcomer Nike (NKE 0.66%) ended up in the dredges of its new index Monday, losing 1.4%. Thankfully, today's performance isn't a reflection of Nike's business, which continues to print money across the globe. A 7% run-up at the end of last week after a blowout quarter, in addition to a weak consumer goods sector on Monday, gave the stock some room to fall.
United Technologies (RTX -0.35%) also lost 1.4%, which didn't help the average of the price-weighted Dow. United Tech, the seventh heaviest-weighted blue chip, declined despite just scoring more than $120 million in contracts from the Department of Defense on Friday. A cool $120 million deal should put any company on cloud nine, right? Unfortunately, that amount doesn't go quite as far as it once did, and investors may have been hoping for a larger slice of the nearly $11 billion in contracts the DOD awarded Friday.
Lastly, Procter & Gamble (PG 0.68%) joins Nike as a laggard from the consumer goods sector. Shares of the $200 billion company dropped 2.1%, spoiled by rival Unilever's disappointing quarter. Citing emerging markets -- supposedly a source of great potential for these companies -- as projecting weakly into the future, Unilever sent shivers down the spines of P&G shareholders.
