Stocks Tumble as Government Shutdown Looms

U.S. stocks closed lower on Monday, as Wall Street considered a standoff on Capitol Hill and the likely duration of a possible government shutdown. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 128.57 points, or 0.84%, to 15,129.67. The S&P 500 index lost 10.20 points, or 0.60%, to 1,681.55. The Nasdaq Composite declined 10.11 points, or 0.27%, to 3,771.48.

The Democratic-led Senate has rejected conditions that House Republicans attached to a temporary spending bill. On the brink of a government shutdown, the Senate voted 54-46 on Monday to strip a one-year delay in President Barack Obama’s health care law from the bill that would keep the government operating. The Senate also stripped a provision that would have eliminated the tax on medical devices.

The Obama administration accelerated its push to persuade individual Americans to sign up for the most extensive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system in 50 years on Monday, as the program’s foes in Congress fought to delay its launch with the threat of a federal government shutdown.

BP was unprepared to respond to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, in spite of decades of warnings that an underwater well blowout was possible, lawyers for plaintiffs seeking damages over the spill have alleged.