Will Healthcare Reform Pass the House?
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Pre-market futures are up this morning, ahead of a big vote in the U.S. House of Representatives that looks to replace the repealed ACA (Obamacare) law that addresses the healthcare of the nation. This would indicate market participants are expecting this bill to pass the House, on what is likely to be a vote split down party lines. We’re also in the wake of a deadly terror attack in London that killed 4 and wounded 29. Eight people have now been arrested in connection with the crime.
Domestic healthcare is the big headline grabber today; passage by the House would likely keep the fires of the Trump Rally stoked a little longer (at least until this bill reached the Senate), in that it points toward a faster track toward enacting a windfall of goodies for corporations and investors: tax cuts, deregulation and infrastructure spending. A failure to pass the House today may be looked as a locking of the gears on these other measures that most excite a majority of supporters of President Trump.
Tax reform would reportedly be next, so that gets investors’ mouths watering. Thus, a passage of this healthcare measure today would mean a lot more than just healthcare to today’s market; even though futures are up, those gains are slight — and we’ve seen for the past half-year or so that equities buyers prefer a big bid-up now when they can see something favorable on the horizon.
The London attack, while tragic, looks to have been contained at this hour. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack. Prime Minister Theresa May has announced she will not raise the threat level to Critical in the wake of the attack.
Initial Jobless Claims
New initial jobless claims numbers were again released early this Thursday, posting a jump of 15,000 new claims to 258K for the week, from a previous week’s number that was revised upward 2,000 after last week’s read. Continuing claims fell to an even 2 million from 2.4 million in last week’s report. This is obviously a good number, though the weekly claims have peeked up out of the 225K-250K range we’d been ensconced in for most of 2017.
Mark Vickery
Senior Editor
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