Stocks jump as America awaits midterm election results

Traders
work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange ahead of the
opening bell in New York
Thomson
Reuters

Stocks rose Tuesday as the
technology sector staged a recovery and as earnings season
elevated Wall Street hours before polling stations were scheduled
to begin closing around the US, with investors bracing for the
possibility of a changing power balance in Washington.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average
rose 0.69%, and the S&P 500 gained 0.63%. The Nasdaq
Composite jumped 0.64% as technology stocks recovered after
iPhone demand concerns dragged the sector down Monday.

Politically-sensitive sectors
were active throughout the day, with shares of firearm companies
like


American Outdoor Brands

(+4.6%) and


Sturm Ruger

(+3.9%)
rallying. Forecasters widely expect Democrats to take control of
the House and Republicans to hold the Senate, but some see the
election as not having a major impact on equities.

“The midterms will change the
political landscape but likely won’t trigger big shifts in
economic policy,” Ian Sheperdson, chief economist at Pantheon
Macroeconomics, wrote in an email. “Tax cuts 2.0 won’t happen,
and neither will a big infrastructure bill; deregulation by order
will continue.”

CVS

reported earnings,
topping analyst expectations for the third quarter and announcing
expectations to close a deal to acquire Aetna before
Thanksgiving.

Booking
Holdings

, which owns
Priceline.com, posted a jump in customers and upbeat
guidance.


Avis

rental car
company, on the other hand, missed. 21st Century Fox is scheduled
to report Wednesday and Disney on Thursday.

Early Tuesday, the Labor
Department

said

the number of job openings in the US slipped
in September but still easily outpaced the number of Americans
looking for work, with the gap widening to more than a
million. 
The dollar
was steady against a basket of currencies following the report,
and Treasury yields climbed.

The Federal Reserve is expected
to keep monetary policy steady at a meeting Thursday. The central
bank increased its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to
2.25% in September, and has signaled the next hike could come in
December.

Oil prices

fell about 1% after the US issued
sanctions waivers to some of Iran’s biggest crude customers. The
Trump administration reimposed sanctions against Tehran Monday,
calling on buyers to trading oil with the Islamic
Republic.