US stocks lose traction before election
The S&P 500 finished Monday down 0.3%. The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.4%. The Russell 2000, which opened the day in negative territory, climbed 0.4%.
Bonds rose. The 10-year Treasury yields fell eight basis points to 4.29% after a rebound last week. Dollar lost some ground ahead of the election. Bitcoin also fell.
Position squaring ahead of Tuesday’s vote was a clear theme of the day. Clean-energy stocks like First Solar and Enphase Energy were among the biggest gainers of the day, as poll numbers indicated rising odds of a Harris presidency. A basket of stocks highlighted by Goldman Sachs as benefiting from Democrats gaining political power outperformed their Republican counterparts by the most since the session following the presidential debate between Trump and Harris.
The energy sector ETF advanced 1.8%. It joined the rise in crude-oil futures, which hit its highest point in a week, after members of OPEC+ oil-producing nations formally extended their current oil-production curbs. Both the US and global benchmark crude rose more than 2%.
The utilities sector was the biggest laggard on the day, down 1.2%. Constellation Energy, a utility stock that soared this year on its plan to restart Three Mile Island, fell 12.5% after regulators blocked another electric-power producer’s nuclear power deal with Amazon.
Among other single stocks, Fox rose 2.8% after reporting a political-advertising-led revenue surge.
