Hundreds of thousands of federal employees may be furloughed if no political agreement is reached in the US Congress before midnight local time. However, no major concern was seen on Wall Street in the hours before the deadline expires.
The broad S&P 500 index closed up 0,4 percent, Nasdaq's technology-heavy composite index climbed 0,3 percent and the Dow Jones industrial index rose 0,2 percent.
Pharmaceutical stocks acted as locomotives. Pfizer soared 6,8 percent after the company announced that it had reached an agreement with Donald Trump to avoid medicine tariffs for three years, in exchange for lower prices on several medicines in the US. Other pharmaceutical giants also rose on the news, as Trump announced that agreements with several companies are imminent.
In the opposite direction, two major Swedish companies went.
Streaming service Spotify plummeted 4,2 percent after founder Daniel Ek announced that he will step down as CEO at the turn of the year.
Recently listed payment service company Klarna continued its downward trend with 4,7 percent. The stock, which had a listing price of 40 dollars, now costs 36,65 dollars.
