The U.S. stock market has reacted with a strong surge after the victory of the Democratic Party in the midterm elections, elections that give them control of both chambers of Congress and that have represented a serious setback for the Trump Administration. The main New York indexes closed the session with widespread gains.
The Nasdaq was up about 2% during the day, while the Nasdaq 100, which brings together the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on this market, gained around 1.5%. The boost came, above all, from the big tech companies: Amazon (+7.38%), Apple (+6.40%) --also supported by its recent quarterly results release--, Microsoft (+6.60%), Alphabet (+4.25%) and Meta (+2.45%).
At the same time, the S&P500 recorded an increase of 1.80% and the Dow Jones rose by almost 3%, in a session driven by renewed appetite for risk, despite the sharp pullbacks suffered the previous week by several companies in the technology sector.
Not all large companies have benefited from this optimism. Semiconductor manufacturer Nvidia lagged and fell 1.24%. Likewise, companies linked to Elon Musk posted notable declines on the exchange floor: SpaceX fell 4% and Tesla gave up a little more than 2.5%.
Movements were not limited to equities. The price of gold rebounded to $4,072, which represents an advance of 3.35%, while bitcoin rose 3.5% and reached $80,332.
In the debt market, yields on government bonds fell across the board globally, with some exceptions such as Argentina, where slight upticks were observed. In the United States, the 10-year Treasury bond fell 1.23% and stood at 4.88%.
In European debt, the yield on the 10-year Spanish bond fell to 3.845%, from the 3.930% recorded at Tuesday’s close. With this, the Spanish risk premium —the spread versus the 10-year German bond— stood at 59.02 basis points.
Despite the initial enthusiasm, experts recommend caution in view of the speed of the stock-market reaction. The analysts note that “although midterm elections are relevant, it could be argued that the result is one more drop in a sea of uncertainty,” as Amadeo Alentorn and Ned Naylor-Leyland of Jupiter AM have pointed out.
"In fact, our systematic indicators show that market uncertainty has been at elevated levels for some time, with doubts about valuations, market concentration, and the generative AI cycle generating persistent unease among investors. Ultimately, we do not believe that the elections will materially worsen the already elevated levels of uncertainty. What matters to us is knowing how to identify opportunities in this uncertain context, and we believe that a disciplined and dynamic approach will be key to achieving that," they added.