NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks ended the session mixed and yields jumped as the election sent gyrations through financial markets around the world. The S&P 500 index rose 0.3% Monday, while most stocks in the index fell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.1% and the Nasdaq composite index gained 0.8%. Some of the world’s strongest action came in Paris, where stocks surged after the election results bolstered financial markets’ hopes of a paralyzed government that won’t increase its debt. U.S. Treasury yields jumped for a second day after a presidential debate last week prompted traders to take action in anticipation of a possible Republican victory in November.
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NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks drifted lower Monday after the French market rallied, Elections continue to cause fluctuations in financial markets around the world.
The S&P 500 index rose 0.3% in afternoon trading, kicking off a shortened four-day week that includes the July 4 holiday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 62 points, or 0.2%, as of 2:15 p.m. ET, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.8%.
Some of the world's strongest action took place across the Atlantic, where the CAC 40 index in Paris jumped 2.8% before settling for a gain of 1.1%. The results from France suggested a Far-right political party may fail to secure decisive majority in the country's legislative elections. This opens the door for France to avoid the worst-case scenario for financial markets, where such a victory could lead policies that would significantly increase the French government's debt and other challenges.
It's a big year for elections around the world, with voters heading to the polls. UK polls later this week and soon elsewhere. In the United States, pollsters are measuring the fallout from last week's debate President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have both been at odds. All of this underscores political polarization and how elections determine the economy, rather than the other way around, according to Nick Gentle and others in Barclays’ product management group.
Trump Media & Technology Group, whose stock has been up and down based on Donald Trump's chances of winning the White House, rose 1.1 percent to $33.10. Shares of the company behind Trump's Truth Social platform, however, are still well below the roughly $70 level it reached earlier this year.
In the bond market, Treasury yields rose, as they did Friday, immediately after the Biden-Trump debate. The increased prospects of a Republican victory in November sent traders back to the moves of 2016, according to Morgan Stanley strategists. In addition to pushing rates higher, traders also invested in stocks of oil and gas and financial companies, among other moves.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 4.49%, up from 4.39% last Friday and 4.29% late Thursday. That’s a slight reversal of the general trend seen in the spring, when the yield on the 10-year Treasury note topped 4.70% in late April.
Yields have fallen sharply on hopes that inflation will slow enough to convince the Federal Reserve to reduce its main interest rate later this year, down from the highest level in more than two decades. High rates have been US economy slowdown by making it more expensive borrow for a housecar or something else.
Rate cut hopes strengthened after a report on Monday showed that the U.S. manufacturing industry weakened Last month, price increases outpaced economists’ forecasts. Perhaps more important for Wall Street, the Institute for Supply Management’s report also indicated that price increases are slowing, even as prices continue to rise. Taken together, these data could provide more evidence of the easing pressure on inflation that the Federal Reserve wants before cutting rates.
The highlight of the week in economic data will likely be Friday, when the U.S. government releases the number of workers hired in June. Economists expect total hiring to have slowed to 190,000, down from 272,000 in May. That would put the number closer to what Bank of America calls the Goldilocks number, or about 150,000, give or take 25,000.
At this level, the U.S. economy could continue to grow and avoid a recession without being strong enough to put upward pressure on inflation.
On Wall Street, Chewy swung from a big initial gain to a 4.1% loss after a a well-followed trader named Keith Gill He disclosed that he owns just over 9 million shares of the pet supply company. That represents about 6.6% of the entire company, according to a filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Gill became famous during the The Original Stock Market Meme Craze of 2021 which saw GameStop rally heights that bend the market. Gill, who goes by Roaring Kitty and other nicknames, became the face of the fans who pushed GameStop higher and higher. Gill had returned to talking about GameStop recently, which helped push its stock price higher. But it fell 5.6% on Monday after its Chewy reveal.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, Spirit AeroSystems rose 3.6% after Boeing announced it would buy the fuselage maker and other aircraft parts for $4.7 billion in stock and assumes about $3.6 billion of its debt.
Boeing, which rose 2.5%, faced difficulties government control and airlines that buy its planes for fear of safety and qualityBoeing previously owned Spirit AeroSystems, and the purchase reverses the company's long-standing strategy of outsourcing key work on its jetliners.
Meta platforms fell 0.1% after European Union regulators accused It's about breaking the new blocks digital competition rules by forcing Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them.
On foreign stock markets, Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 0.1% after a quarterly survey A Bank of Japan report, called the Tankan, showed a modest improvement in confidence among the country's largest manufacturers from April to June.
Shanghai stocks rose 0.9% after mixed data from the world's second-largest economy.
AP reporters Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed to this report.
