The Dow has hit a record high in Wall Street’s upbeat trading after the weekend's Pennsylvania shooting influenced Presidential election predictions. Photo / Montage, File
The Dow has hit a record high in Wall Street’s upbeat trading after the weekend's Pennsylvania shooting influenced Presidential election predictions. Photo / Montage, File
By Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Ankika Biswas in New York City
The Dow has hit a record high in Wall Street’s upbeat trading on a greater chance of presidential candidate Donald Trump winning a second term after surviving an assassination attempt while interest rate cut hopes also aided sentiment.
Under Trump, markets expect a hawkish trade policy and looser regulations over issues from climate change to cryptocurrency.
Online betting site PredictIt showed bets of an election win for Trump at 66 cents, up from Friday’s 60 cents, with a victory for Joe Biden at 26 cents.
“In a Republican administration, you’ll see a lower tax policy, lower regulatory policy ... that’s typically good for stocks. We’re seeing some of that in terms of forward-looking expectations from investors at this point,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance.
Trump-linked stocks soared, with Trump Media & Technology Group, software firm Phunware and video-sharing platform Rumble jumping between 6.0 per cent and 32 per cent.
Crypto stocks also leapt as bitcoin rose to a two-week high.
Coinbase Global, Marathon Digital holdings and Riot Platforms advanced between 5.3 per cent and 8.2 per cent.
Other stocks that are expected to benefit from Trump’s second term also climbed, with Gunmaker Smith & Wesson and prison operator GEO Group gaining 12.6 per cent and 9.4 per cent respectively.
The Dow hit a record high, boosted by a 2.0 per cent gain in UnitedHealth as health insurers also jumped on a likely Trump win.
The small-cap Russell 2000 gained 1.2 per cent to its highest since January 2022, in continued evidence of broad-based market gains.
Investors priced in an 88 per cent odd of a 25-basis-point rate cut by September and two cuts for 2024, according to LSEG data, even though the Fed’s last set of economic projections had indicated only one rate cut this year.
The Dow has hit a record high in Wall Street’s upbeat trading after the weekend's Pennsylvania shooting influenced Presidential election predictions. Photo / Montage, File
Rate cut hopes aided Friday’s strong rally, which saw the Dow and S&P 500 touch intraday record highs after cooler than expected inflation data, and the Russell 2000 notch its best week since November.
Comments from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell and San Francisco Fed president Mary Daly, expected later on Monday, will be parsed for clues on their assessment of last week’s inflation data.
In early trading on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 201.52 points, or 0.50 per cent, at 40,202.42, the S&P 500 was up 23.67 points, or 0.42 per cent, at 5,639.02, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 93.90 points, or 0.51 per cent, at 18,492.34.
