U.S. stocks ticked up ahead of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Tuesday deadline for Congress to reach an agreement on a spending package to support American households and businesses through the pandemic.
The S&P 500 rose 0.5%, taking back some of its losses from earlier in the week. The broad-market index fell 1.6% Monday as investors grew concerned that lawmakers weren’t making progress on a deal.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, opened 95 points higher. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.5%.
Mrs. Pelosi has indicated that the White House needs to reach a deal with Democrats by the end of Tuesday if the government wants to pass the next coronavirus-relief bill before Election Day. The California Democrat and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin edged closer on some policy differences holding up a sweeping coronavirus relief package, but disputes remained. Both sides said they are continuing to work on the matter.
“There has to be some form of a deal: the most likely outcome is that they’ll have to do something. Given what’s happening with Covid, the economy needs some support and markets need some form of guidance,” said Peter Dixon, an economist at Commerzbank. But “we are really running out of time,” he cautioned.