Update: Well, kiss that idea goodbye: GOVERNMENT WILL SHUT DOWN TONIGHT; HOUSE WILL NOT ATTEMPT MORE VOTES TONIGHT, WAPO REPORTS (link [3])
[4]
While it will be supremely ironic if stocks were to soar on the day the US government shuts down (it would be curious to see how Congress would spin that particular "market" reaction to a world without a US government), a ramp in the futures is precisely what is going on.
[5]
And while there is no definite reason for this market reaction, it is being attributed to two things: first, the House Rules panel announced moments ago it would meet at 10:30 pm on a new spending Bill and are that Republicans are said to seek talks with the Senate on spending. Of course, if the GOP folds in the last moment, it would be Boehner's most epic collapse to date (in a long and illustrious series of humiliations). Which brings us to reason number two: also moments ago, John McCain pretty much threw his colleagues under the bus, saying House Republicans will not "succeed in the end" and that the House will end up sending a clean CR, just as Obama has demanded all along, which in turn has emboldened traders to assume that there is a better than negligible chance the GOP will once again bend over.
From NRO [6]:
Senator John McCain had tough words for House Republicans tonight after the Senate rejected their latest amendments to the continuing resolution.
“They will not succeed in the end,” McCain told reporters of the House Republicans trying to tie anti-Obamacare measures to the CR.
“We can’t win,” the Arizona senator added. Talking about the House sending a clean CR, McCain remarked, “That’s going to happen sooner or later.”
Asked if there would be another vote, McCain said,”No, no, no we’re not doing [that].” Senate majority leader Harry Reid, he added, “thinks that they [the House] are not going to act tonight.”
Either way: 90 minutes now and counting.