Roller Coaster

I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot of this in the coming week:

U.S. stock futures fell, indicating the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will drop after rallying within 1.4 percent of a three-year high, as President Barack Obama and Congress failed to reach an agreement on raising the federal debt limit, intensifying concern the nation will default.

S&P 500 futures expiring in September declined 1 percent to 1,327.20 at 2:31 p.m. in Tokyo. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures lost 127 points, or 1 percent, to 12,494.
[…]
The impasse has boosted the chance S&P will cut the U.S. credit rating from AAA within three months to 50 percent, the company said July 21.

“It’s a major disappointment that they can’t come to a compromise of some sort,” James Dunigan, chief investment officer in Philadelphia for PNC Wealth Management, said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees $109 billion. “We came down to the 11th hour. There’s an increasing likelihood that without a significant deal the chances of a debt downgrade will rise. If you re-rate the safest security in the world, everything else gets re-rated against that.”

And all of this, I will remind you, is because Republicans see their pledge to Grover Norquist as more important than their oath of office.

There’s a word for people like that: Benedict Arnold.