The most widely-followed gauge of market fear and uncertainty jumped on Wednesday after the Senate failed to pass a last-minute funding bill that would have averted a government shutdown.
The Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, climbed 0.9 points to 17.2 in early trading. Any level of below 20 tends to indicate relatively low volatility, so the latest reading doesn’t mean Wall Street is in panic mode just yet.
Still, investors were feeling a little more on edge than they were before the government shut down. It’s looking unlikely that the Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish its monthly jobs report on Friday–and that would have been a key data point for the market, which is still trying to figure out how aggressively the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates.