There has always been a quiet border in American capitalism—an invisible velvet rope separating the public markets from the private rooms where fortunes are actually made. On one side stands everyone else. And on the other side, the “people in the know”—the elite circles who, for decades, have quietly accessed what most Americans can’t: equity in private companies before they explode into billion-dollar powerhouses.

The Trump administration’s latest attempt to conjure up money to pay air traffic controllers during the federal shutdown appears to have hit a hard wall.

U.S. stock futures fell amid government shutdown fears, yet Wall Street heads into the final September session with unusually strong gains.