NEW YORK —
Most of the U.S. stock market is rallying Wednesday as Wall Street tries to sort the winners from the losers following stunning losses for President Donald Trump’s party in the midterm elections.
The early winners appear to include solar-power companies, for example. Investors meanwhile see risks ahead for Trump’s social-media company, the artificial-intelligence industry and businesses owned by Elon Musk, who donated heavily to Republicans. But the moves may not last, and uncertainty about what the election will mean had futures for U.S. stocks swinging from losses to gains before the U.S. market even opened.
For now, at least, the S&P 500 jumped 1.2% in early trading and was potentially on track for its best day in six weeks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1,178 points, or 2.3%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% higher.
Strategists along Wall Street had been urging investors not to get swept up in the election because it may not matter much in the long term. Historically, U.S. stocks tend to do well in the six months following any midterm election, regardless of who wins. Prices for stocks depend more on where profits for companies and interest rates are heading than anything else.
“Earnings trump elections,” according to Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management.
Wall Street also may have gotten a preferred political scenario with Democrats set to take control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. That could provide a counterbalance to the White House, which is still led by Trump, and Wall Street generally prefers split control of Washington because it lessens the risk of transformative changes to the economy.
Much remains impossible to predict, of course, and Trump retains executive authority over key areas such as defense, foreign policy and in some instances trade.
A downbeat forecast could be that “Trump is not now a lame duck, but an angry duck” who might restart tensions over tariffs and NATO allies’ levels of military spending, said Carsten Brzeski, global chief of macro at ING Bank.
An optimistic view, Brzeski said, is that Trump becomes “a tame duck … that he will slow down any disruptive efforts and that he will put more focus on trying to win the Nobel Peace Prize by ending the two big wars without big disruption, and on trade, nothing happens but a few words.”
Here’s a look at some of the moves rippling through financial markets:
Trump Media and Tesla are down
Trump’s social-media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, was one of the market’s bigger losers following the election and dropped 9.1%. It had already come into the day with a loss of 55.1% for the year so far as Trump’s approval ratings had weakened.
Since briefly touching a peak of $175 five years ago, it’s dropped toward $5. Its main business is Truth Social, which is most well known for Trump’s postings on the platform.
Elon Musk’s businesses also struggled. Tesla fell 5.2%, and SpaceX sank 4.8%. Musk, a former top Trump adviser, is among the possible targets for investigations by a Democratic-controlled Congress.
AI companies in general are under pressure
Trump has been a big backer of the AI industry, and a Democratic counterweight on Capitol Hill could mean more regulation or restrictions for the industry. Concerns have grown across political parties about AI in general.
Investors see Democratic victories in Texas in particular, including for the state’s governorship, as possibly slowing the buildout of further AI data centers.
Nvidia, the chip company that quickly became the poster child of the frenzy around AI-related stocks, fell 1.5% and was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500. Advanced Micro Devices, another chip giant, rose a modest 0.3% despite reporting much stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
Green power companies are up
Democratic control of Congress could light the way for companies in the solar and wind industries. First Solar jumped 15.1%, and Enphase Energy climbed 12.1%.
Bond yields are down
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased. That could be a signal that investors see less risk of Washington piling even more debt onto its already big mountain.
Treasury yields had surged through the summer and reached their highest levels in decades because of worries about the U.S. government’s big debt, along with higher inflation and other concerns. A Congress controlled by Democrats could provide a check against more spending and cuts to taxes that would widen Washington’s deficit.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.92% from 4.95% late Tuesday.
