American stocks ended mixed on Tuesday as voters went to the polls in the midterm elections. The Nasdaq Composite rose by about 0.8 per cent and the S&P 500 by about 0.4 per cent, snapping a three-day losing streak, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by about 0.4 per cent.
Chipmakers led the gains ahead of quarterly results from AMD after the close. Micron rose by about 4 per cent in early trading, and Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom and Intel each gained about 3 per cent, recovering part of last week's sell-off in technology shares.
Forecasts under scrutiny
Investors were less forgiving of companies whose outlooks disappointed. Shopify fell by 8.7 per cent after its third-quarter revenue of $3.74bn came in just below expectations and growth in the value of goods sold on its platform slowed. Apple lost 1.9 per cent after forecasting a lower gross margin for the holiday quarter, citing the rising cost of memory chips. Palantir fell 1.7 per cent despite revenue growth of 96 per cent, as growth in new American contracts slowed to 11 per cent.
The ten-year Treasury yield stood at about 4.91 per cent. Brent crude fell to around $103 a barrel as traders weighed signs of diplomatic progress with Iran against reports of fresh American strikes near the Strait of Hormuz.
Markets now await the election results. Polls suggest Democrats are likely to win the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate, which would divide Congress and constrain the White House's legislative agenda for the final two years of Donald Trump's term. A divided government has historically been treated calmly by investors; the bigger questions for markets are tariffs, the war with Iran and the cost of borrowing.
