NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes rose Tuesday as voters headed to the polls on the final day of the election. presidential election.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% in early trading, approaching last month’s record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 66 points, or 0.2%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% higher.

Excitement about the AI ​​boom helped rally Wall Street, as it did for much of last year. Software company Palantir Technologies rose 16.7% in the latest quarter after posting higher profits and revenue than analysts expected. This is an industry known for thinking big and talking big, and CEO Alexander Karp said: “We’ve been completely gutted this quarter, driven by relentless AI demand that isn’t slowing down.”

Boeing rose 0.1 percent after striking factory workers voted to accept the aerospace giant’s latest offer. contract offer. The approval clears the way for Boeing to restart Pacific Northwest assembly lines that the walkout idled for 53 days and resume production of its best-selling plane.

They helped offset Wynn Resorts’ 5.2% decline after the casino operator’s last-quarter results fell short of analysts’ estimates.

A currency trader walks in front of a screen showing the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the South Korean won in a foreign exchange trading room in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee ​​Jin-man)

Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Lee Jin-man

The main event is the election, even if the outcome may not be known for days, weeks or months as officials count all the votes. This uncertainty could disrupt markets with the Fed’s upcoming meeting About interest rates later this week. The widespread expectation is that it will cut the key interest rate for the second time in a row.

Despite all the uncertainty as we approach the final day of voting, many professional investors suggest focusing on the long term and what corporate profits will do over the next few years and decades. Stocks have historically tended to rise Whichever party wins White House.

From 1945 through the end of last month, the S&P 500 rose in 73% of the years when a Democrat was president and in 70% of the years when a Republican was the nation’s chief executive, according to Sam Stovall, CFRA’s chief investment strategist.

The US stock market has tended to rise more when Democrats are president; This was partly because the loss during George W. Bush’s term hurt the Republican average. Bush took office as the dot-com bubble was bursting and left office as the 2008 global financial crisis and the Great Recession devastated markets.

Besides who will be president, other questions hanging over the market include whether the White House will work with a united Congress or one divided by political parties, and whether the results will be challenged.

The general hope among investors is generally for splitting control of the U.S. government because that increases the likelihood of maintaining the status quo and preventing major changes that could send the nation’s debt much higher.

When it comes to a contested election, Wall Street has some priorities in hindsight. In 2000, the S&P 500 fell 5% in about five weeks after Election Day, before Al Gore bowed to George W. Bush. But this also happened as the dot-com bubble collapsed, with the S&P 500 nearly halving from March 2000 to October 2002.

Four years ago, the S&P 500 rose the day after the polls closed, even though the winner was not yet clear. And it continued to rise even after the previous one President Donald Trump refused to concede and challenged the results, creating plenty of uncertainty. Much of this rally was driven by excitement about the potential for a Covid-19 vaccine, which has just stalled the global economy.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 4.31% from 4.29% at the end of Monday.

In foreign stock markets, indices in Europe and Asia were mixed. Movements were mostly modest, except for jumps of 2.3% in Shanghai and 2.1% in Hong Kong.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott, Alex Veiga and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

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