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US stocks stepped higher on Tuesday as Election Day got underway, with investors settling in to wait and see whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will shape the economy as the next president.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led the gains, up 0.5%, while the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) moved up roughly 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) opened just above the flatline on the heels of a losing day for stocks.
Americans are heading to the polls with Harris and Trump running neck-and-neck after a intensely contested presidential race. Investors are buckling in for market volatility, as the outcome may not become clear for days — or even weeks, if the result is disputed.
Read more: The Yahoo Finance guide to the presidential election and what it means for your wallet
Given the huge difference in the candidates’ stances on the economy, a long wait for a declared winner could inject more uncertainty for markets. But historically, while the lack of a clear victory has brought turbulence in the short term, it has rarely halted the long-term trend for gains.
The dollar (DX-Y.NB) and Treasury yields traded broadly steady after retreating on Monday as as traders dialed back bets on a Trump win. The greenback nudged slightly lower, while the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury (^TNX) ticked about 1 basis point higher.
Dead ahead is the November policy decision from the Federal Reserve, which also has a lot at stake on Election Day. Chair Jerome Powell is overwhelmingly expected to bring in a 25 basis point rate cut at the end of the two-day meeting on Thursday.
Meanwhile, another big batch of quarterly earnings will roll in, with results from struggling AI server maker Super Micro Computer (SMCI) and Ferrari (RACE) on the docket.
The bitter seven-week strike at Boeing (BA) has ended after factory workers voted for a new contract offering a 38% pay hike. The planemaker’s shares moved up roughly 2% in early trading.
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Betting markets, election models point to a close race as voters cast ballots
Here’s what the betting markets and election forecasters are saying as the 2024 campaign comes to an end.
Political betting app Kalshi recently became the first place where Americans could legally wager on the 2024 election — and the bets have flooded in.
Heading into election day, the site put Trump’s odds at 57% which was akin, co-founder Tarek Mansour said in a Yahoo Finance Live appearance Monday to “a very slightly biased coin flip.”
A compilation of other betting markets from RealClearPolling, spanning other popular sites open to overseas betters from Polymaket to Smarkets has the odds of a Trump win at 59.2% to 39.3%. Those odds mean that Harris would win almost four contests if the election were run ten times.
As for the polling-based election models, they projected a tighter race.
Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin model ran its last update at 12:00 am ET on Nov. 5 and found a nearly exact tie in electoral college probability with Harris winning 50% of the time to 49.6% for Trump.
Silver’s final run featured 80,000 simulations with Harris winning in 40,012 of them, he wrote.
The 538.com election model was another tossup. It found Harris winning 50 out of 100 simulations. Trump won 49 times out of 100 with a less than 1-in-100 chance of no Electoral College winner.
The final analysis from the Economist magazine found a slight Harris edge with the Vice President winning 56 out of 100 hypothetical contests.
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Stocks open higher on Election Day
US stocks opened mostly higher on Tuesday as Election Day got underway. Markets are in wait-and-see mode when it comes to who will end up in the White House: Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led the gains, up 0.5%, while the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) moved up roughly 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) opened just above the flatline on the heels of a losing day for stocks.
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Good morning. Here’s what’s happening today.
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A good reminder for investors on Election Day
Election Day has arrived.
And with it, all the typical bantering about on outcomes for the country, world and markets. Amidst the hot and heavy news flow, Truist co-chief investment officer Keith Lerner (who will be on my Opening Bid podcast tomorrow at 8am ET with his post-election analysis) dropped the helpful chart below.
I think it offers up a good reminder that no matter the outcome of the presidential election, it has paid dividends to be an investor in stocks over time.
