By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The Dow rallied for a third-straight day shrugging off uncertainty over the election outcome amid a tight race to the White House.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.3%, or 633 points. The S&P 500 was up 2.92%, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 3.94%.
Former Vice President Joe Biden holds 238-213 slender lead over President Donald Trump, but the race to 270 electoral votes to secure the White House is set to go down to the wire as several swing states including Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina continue to count votes.
Biden pulled further away from Trump after results showed the former vice president won Wisconsin by 20,697.
In a blow to hopes of a blue wave – Democrats taking the White House and Congress – the path to reclaiming the Senate majority continued to narrow as Republicans have held onto the bulk of the dozen seats that were at risk.
Without a Senate majority, the Democrats may struggle to push through key legislation including a large broad-based stimulus bill, climate change measures, and a massive infrastructure spending.
Health care and technology led the broader market higher as the fading prospect of a blue wave eased fears that the group may come under pressure from tax hikes and intensive regulatory scrutiny.
“The Democratic Party has become increasingly critical on Internet company market power, with more liberal members, such as Elizabeth Warren [D-Mass.], of the party calling for breakups or utility-like regulation,” Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) analyst Justin Post said in a recent note.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), which together make up a quarter weighting of the S&P 500, were up sharply, with the latter up 9%.
Energy also climbed higher, on a sharp uptick in oil prices after U.S. weekly crude inventories fell unexpectedly.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that weekly crude stock fell by 8 million barrels last week. Economists had expected a build of about 900,000 barrels.
On the economic front, signs of cracks in the labor market just days ahead of the nonfarm payrolls report due Friday was largely cast aside in the shadow of the election.
Private payrolls grew by 365,000 last month, a sharp decline from the 749,000 in September, according to a report released Wednesday by ADP (NASDAQ:ADP) and Moody's (NYSE:MCO) Analytics. That beat economists’ forecast of 650,000.
Also raising some concern about the recovery, services activity slowed in October.
ISM nonmanufacturing data for September showed a fall to 56.6 from 57.8 the prior month, missing expectations of 57.5.
“This month's level indicates continued expansion, but at a slower pace. Combined with this morning's weak ADP data, it does not bode well for Friday's payroll data,” Jefferies (NYSE:JEF) said in a note.
In other news, Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER) and LYFT (NASDAQ:LYFT) companies jumped more than 11% and 8%, respectively.
Californians voted against a labor law that aimed to reclassify drivers of the ride-hailing companies as employees rather than independent contractors.