On Wall Street, the Mood Is, Shutdown? What Shutdown?

The government shutdown may have entered its second week. But for investors, it’s been business as usual.

Little of the uncertainty that’s loomed over federal workers, food program beneficiaries, and small businesses has so far seemed to reach the markets, which have continued to enjoy record highs. And investors seem largely unfazed by the standoff in Washington, confident that this latest shutdown will—like previous ones—reach a resolution without a long-term effect on the overall economy.

“Shutdowns tend to not be paid much attention to by the market,” says John Stoltzfus, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer & Co. “Ultimately, what [investors] are looking at…is what is the effect from the problem of the day on revenue growth, or sales growth and earning growth.”

And right now, Stoltzfus says, the damage of the shutdown is being felt, “sadly enough, by the employees who get furloughed, the employees who might be laid off permanently”—not corporations.

“The market isn’t reacting because not a whole lot has really changed for businesses yet,” adds Stephen Kates, a financial analyst at Bankrate. “And there is the expectation that this is still going to get settled.”

In the past, shutdowns have caused relatively small economic blips; economists with Morgan Stanley estimate that quarterly GDP growth declines by .05 percentage points per each week of a shutdown. Even the record shutdown of Donald Trump’s first term, which lasted 35 days, only knocked $3 billion off the GDP. They’ve even been seen as an opportunity; the defense and health care sectors, in particular, lean heavily on government contracts, as Morgan Stanley notes. For investors, the bet is that the past will be prologue.

But there’s a possibility that this situation could be different. For one thing, the shutdown is playing out against the backdrop of broader economic uncertainty, as reflected in the ongoing surge in gold prices, which rose past $4,000 per ounce for the first time ever Tuesday, with investors also turning to Bitcoin. (A BNY Investments outlook notes that “precious metals tend to rally” as a shutdown continues and markets are impacted.) For another, the shutdown is delaying the release of economic data—some of which has undermined Trump’s claims of a turbocharged economy—potentially leaving investors in the dark. And, of course, there is the nature of this shutdown: “I feel like they’re gridlocked today more than they were even in the first Trump administration,” Kates says.