The US federal government shutdown, which has temporarily stopped the pay of 850,000 government workers, has brought operations at the Securities and Exchange Commission almost entirely to a halt, although the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are remaining open because their funding does not come from congressional appropriations.

Twenty times President Trump has stated that he wanted to shut down the Government if Congress failed to fund his plans for a border wall to keep Mexicans out. One month ago he said to Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer on camera: "I am proud to shut down the Government for border security. I will be the one to shut it down. I'm not going to blame you for it."

With the shutdown in its 19th day, the SEC's telephones are still going unanswered. It is not dealing with questions, registrations, requests for exemptive relief or submissions of reports and information, known as 'filings.' One of the commission's departments, for example, put a notice on the SEC website on 27th December which reads: "Due to the government shutdown, the Division of Investment Management will not be available to respond to any questions about pending matters...regulations require us to cease our regular activities...the division will not be in a position to act upon any requests for acceleration of the effective date of a pending registration statement or qualification of a pending offering statement. Investment companies can continue to make filings on EDGAR during this time. A limited number of staff members are available to answer questions relating to fee calculations for filings."

The SEC's main site states that is is still fielding a skeleton staff to respond to "emergency situations involving market integrity and investor protection, including law enforcement."

The OCC, meanwhile, is still functioning. Last week it released Community Reinvestment Act performance evaluations for 31 national banks and published this year's schedule of workshops for directors and senior management at certain financial institutions.