Stock Market Live October 16: S&P 500 (VOO) Rising Early On Investor Enthusiasm

<!– Legacy Bulma: `live-update-content` opening

Thanks to strong earnings reports, investors are still shrugging off trade war fears and the fact that the U.S. government is now in its third week of a shutdown.

Futures are up across the board, with Dow futures up 182 points. The Nasdaq is up about 141, as the S&P 500 tacks on about 27 points. The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) is also showing big signs of life thanks to impressive earnings.

All thanks to strong earnings we’ve seen from banks, such as Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), which posted better-than-expected earnings and revenue, beating analyst expectations. In fact, its EPS of $1.06 was better than the anticipated 95 cents. Revenue of $28.24 billion was also better than expectations of $27.5 billion. That all follows the strong earnings we’ve seen from JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs over the last few days.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) also posted better-than-expected earnings.

EPS of $2.80 were better than estimates of $2.10. Revenue of $18.22 billion was also far better than expectations of $16.7 billion.

Other stocks, such as Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), are up more than 6% in premarket after issuing new financial targets for the next few years.

In fact, CRM said it now expects revenue of over $60 billion in 2030, above the projected $58.37 billion. CRM also expects to achieve organic annual growth of above 10% between fiscal 2026 and 2030, marking a return to double-digit expansion.

All of this is Overshadowing Domestic and Foreign Issues

Granted, the trade war is still an issue.

Most recently, President Trump threatened China with a cooking oil trade ban, which followed China buying fewer U.S. soybeans.

“I believe that China purposefully not buying our Soybeans, and causing difficulty for our Soybean Farmers, is an Economically Hostile Act. We are considering terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil, and other elements of Trade, as retribution,” he wrote in a Truth Social post, as noted by CNBC. “As an example, we can easily produce Cooking Oil ourselves, we don’t need to purchase it from China.”

Trump has also threatened an additional 100% tariff on any goods coming from China following Beijing’s rare earth controls.

Investors are also keeping an eye on the U.S. government shutdown, which is still delaying economic releases from being released. There are also concerns that the shutdown could last into November. “If things continue apace well into November, the stoppage will become the longest one in US history. That deadline is looming on Nov. 4, when the current stoppage could potentially surpass a 34-day shutdown that began in 2018,” as noted by Yahoo Finance.

The good news – as long as earnings remain as strong as they’ve been, investors are likely to continue shrugging off the trade war and the latest government shutdown.