US: Stocks retreat in election eve session
WALL Street stocks finished lower on Monday following a choppy session as markets gird for volatility connected to the US presidential election.
Vice-President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump embarked on a final blitz in swing-state campaigning ahead of in-person voting on Tuesday. Polls show the race as neck and neck.
Analysts have been predicting that stocks would bounce around until the political situation is clearer. The election spells potentially major implications for tax and trade policy, as well as impacts on individual sectors.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 0.6 per cent at 41,794.60.
The broad-based S&P 500 declined 0.3 per cent to 5,712.69, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index also shed 0.3 per cent to 18,179.98.
While the presidential election has been viewed as a toss-up, markets overwhelmingly expect the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by a quarter point on Thursday.
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Another big potential catalyst for market activity this week will be a meeting of Chinese policy makers in which officials are expected to hash out a major stimulus package.
Among individual companies, Constellation Energy tumbled 12.5 per cent along with other nuclear power equities after US energy regulators rejected a nuclear power supply proposal for an Amazon data centre, raising worries about other similar projects.
Boeing rose 0.3 per cent as striking members of the machinist union in the Seattle region weighed the latest contract proposal. The vote by some 33,000 machinists in could pave the way for production to resume at two factories after a more than seven-week stoppage.
Marriott International dropped 1.6 per cent as it reported lower profits, with analysts pointing to China’s economic slowdown and sluggishness in US leisure travel as drags on the results. AFP
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