STOCKS RALLY AND THE GOVERNMENT'S STILL SHUT DOWN: Here's What You Need To Know

First, the scoreboard:

• Dow: 15,063, +67.4, +0.4%
• S&P 500: 1,689.4, +10.8, +0.6%
• NASDAQ: 3,807.6, +33.2, 0.8%

And now the top stories:

• The government remains shut down. As a result, the Bureau of Labor Statistics was closed, which was why we didn't get a jobs report today.
• Meanwhile, the debt ceiling continues to inch closer. Goldman Sachs' Alec Phillips assigns a 30% probability of a debt ceiling resolution before the government comes back online: "The debt limit is increased well before October 17 but the shutdown continues beyond that. It is possible that after attempting to merge the two issues, congressional leaders could find themselves still unable to agree on how to resolve the shutdown by the time the debt limit deadline has been reached. However, it appears fairly clear to us that neither Republican nor Democratic leaders are interested in allowing the Treasury to run out of cash. In such a scenario, it is plausible that House Republicans could agree to bring up a "clean" or nearly clean debt limit increase, which would pass with more Democratic than Republican votes. Media reports indicate that Speaker Boehner has raised this possibility with some of his Republican colleagues."
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