Fed’s path ahead could be clouded if U.S. government shuts down

After a seemingly unproductive meeting between lawmakers and U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, the chances that the country’s government will be shutting down two days later appear to be growing.

If the U.S. government shuts down, it’s essentially like a depressed millennial spending a week in bed having an existential crisis. That is to say, vital functions of the country, such as defence and healthcare, are preserved, but non-essential ones will be curtailed.

One of the offices that will pause functioning: the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which releases the jobs and inflation reports, on which the Federal Reserve relies to make rate decisions. Delayed or murky data means a foggier sea for Chair Jerome Powell to navigate.

Still, major U.S. indexes climbed on Monday as artificial intelligence kingpin Nvidia regained some ground lost last week, while shares of Electronic Arts popped on news that the video game company will be taken private.

Meanwhile, investors pushed up shares of Etsy because of its tie-up with OpenAI’s new Instant Checkout feature. In other words, the haven for “corporate refugees,” who have turned to handmaking crafts, is partnering the artificial intelligence company that seems to be creating corporate refugees.

Cue more millennial existential crises.

France’s sovereign wealth chief has a warning for Europe: We’re being ‘doubly colonized’

The head of France’s state investment bank Bpifrance has painted a grim picture of Europe, saying the continent is caught between the world’s two largest economies and is unable to fund its own future-critical industries.

“I’m sorry to be radical in my vision, but we are doubly colonized: industrially colonized by the Chinese, digitally colonized by the U.S.,” Dufourcq said at IPEM, a private capital conference in Paris, last week. “It’s not in the future; the consequences are now.”

— Ganesh Rao