Wall Street on Debt-Ceiling Alert as Key Seven-Day Window Begins

Investors are watching Washington with a keen eye as President Joe Biden hosts House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday in a bid to resolve the ongoing impasse over the US debt ceiling and avoid a potentially catastrophic technical default.

Tuesday marks the first of seven days in May when both chambers of Congress are available and Biden is also scheduled to be in the US capital, meaning it’s the beginning of a potentially narrow window to strike a deal before the early-June danger period for default risk. The Biden- McCarthy meeting is their first in three months and comes after both have dug ever-more-firmly into their respective positions. Ahead of the meeting both McCarthy and the White House pushed back against the idea of implementing a short-term extension to the ceiling.