Wall Street Splits on Election Day as Apple Drops a $114.5B Quarter

Wall Street walked into Election Day with a split screen. The Nasdaq 100 climbed 0.37% and the S&P 500 added 0.11% at the open, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up 0.31%. Investors were clearly in a buying mood for riskier assets even as the midterm elections threatened to flip control of Congress away from the Republican Party.

The earnings calendar did some of the heavy lifting. Apple reported $114.5 billion in revenue for the period, a headline number that anchored the morning. Pfizer and BioNTech also pushed out their quarterly reports, putting the pharma pair in the same spotlight as the broader market's political drama.

There's more where that came from. Amgen, Ferrari, Booking and AIG are all on deck to report, keeping the season's pace cranked up. Futures had already hinted at the mixed start, with the Dow down 302 points and the S&P 500 off 0.10% in premarket trade, while Nasdaq 100 futures gained 0.24%.

Currency markets stayed quiet. The euro sat flat against the dollar at 1.11883, essentially unchanged from its premarket level of 1.11889. No drama there — the action is elsewhere.

The session follows a rough Monday, when stocks closed mostly lower as money kept draining out of tech and the Nasdaq 100 dropped 1.40%. Oil prices tumbled that day on renewed hopes for a Middle East peace deal, easing worries about energy supply. Rivian rode a UBS upgrade to a 12% gain, while Oracle slid more than 6% on plans to raise $20 billion for AI expansion.

Now all eyes turn to the ballot box. Control of Congress is the prize, and traders are betting the results will set the tone for the rest of the week.