Wall Street, evidently, was happy today at the prospect of divided government.
Banking that a change of control in the House would keep the gridlock in Washington fully in place, the Dow Jones industrial average jumped 1 percent, accompanied by even larger gains in the tech-heavy Nasdaq index.
"The news of the day reminded everyone after a couple of bad days in the market that corporate America still has a lot of cash in its wallet," said John Forelli, a portfolio manager at Independence Advisors.
It's interesting that the markets were up today, since, historically, the markets go down on election days due to the uncertainty. They also tend to go down because Democrats in power is bad for investors since they like to raise taxes.
"I guess people are looking at the polls and saying, 'Well, what were the best years we've had in the market?' The years when Bill Clinton was president with a Republican Congress," said Art Hogan, market strategist at Jefferies & Co.
A Congress dominated by Democrats won't be likely to push through major tax increases under a Republican president.
"That would mean that for at least two years, the free market economy and business cycle fundamentals would be left to function without interference, which investors seem to believe would be, at worst, benign," said Hogan.
As long as the Dems can't tax us, we'll be in good shape.
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