The daily business briefing: January 19, 2018

Stocks stay strong despite a looming government shutdown, Amazon unveils the 20 cities vying for its second HQ, and more

The Amazon logo on a center in Berlin
(Image credit: Getty Images)

1. Markets shrug off government shutdown threat, for now

U.S. stock futures gained early Friday, despite the threat of a federal government shutdown. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 0.4 percent, while those for the S&P 500 gained 0.3 percent. Nasdaq-100 futures were up by 0.5 percent. The three major U.S. equity indexes fell back from record highs on Thursday. The House on Thursday passed a stopgap spending measure to keep government agencies funded through Feb. 16. Senate Democrats are threatening to block it, however, as a midnight deadline looms. The stopgap measure would extend a popular children's health-care program for six years and delay several Affordable Care Act taxes, but lacks protections for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, which Democrats are demanding.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.