Wall Street ticked lower Tuesday as the U.S. inched closer to a federal government shutdown amid a partisan standoff over health care and spending, the Associated Press reports.
Futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq dropped 0.2% in the premarket, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slipped 0.3%.
The government will shut down on Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. if Congressional Democrats and Republicans are unable to come to an agreement to extend federal funding. At that time, thousands of federal workers could be furloughed or permanently laid off.
Shares of EchoStar Corp. surged Tuesday morning for the third time in the past month on media reports that Verizon is in talks to acquire some of the telecom company’s spectrum licenses for 5G use.
EchoStar sold off some of its spectrum licenses to SpaceX earlier this month and to AT&T in late August. Echostar shares were up 8.6% before the bell Tuesday, to about $80 each.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude fell 53 cents to $62.92 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 53 cents to $66.56 per barrel.
