The Dow soared 3% following the Democrats' election victory: this is its best gain in 1.5 years
Oil prices fell this week at the fastest pace in more than six years
Photo: Unsplash/Jon Sailer
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the U.S. stock market’s “blue-chip” index, rose 3% at the close of trading on November 4 — after the Democratic Party secured majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate as a result of the midterm elections. The index posted its best one-day gain since April 9, 2025, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced a pause in tariffs, Barron’s noted. The Dow also posted its best post-election performance since 1982, the publication added.
The S&P 500 broad-market index rose 1.6% (its strongest gain in three months), while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 1.4% and the Nasdaq 100 rose 0.9%. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), known as the “Wall Street fear index,” by contrast, plummeted 20%, also marking its sharpest one-day drop since April 9, 2025, according to MarketWatch.
Microsoft shares rose 6.7%, setting a new record. Apple shares rose 5.3%—also reaching a new all-time high. Amazon shares soared 6.1%, Alphabet’s rose 3.2%, and Meta’s gained 1.4%. Among the “Magnificent Seven,” Tesla shares fell 3.3% and Nvidia shares dropped 3.1%. Nvidia fell along with other chipmakers as investors worry about obstacles to the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure that Democrats might create—specifically, restrictions on the construction of data centers, Barron’s noted. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost 3.1%: Sandisk shares plummeted 7.9%, and Micron shares fell 7%. Shares of cloud-computing providers also plummeted: Nebius fell 6.7%, and CoreWeave dropped nearly 10%.
The election results have clearly put pressure on stocks related to data center construction, but investors may be overreacting: a Democratic majority in Congress will merely “slow down new projects,” said Paisley Nardini, head of investment strategy at Tema ETF, in an interview with Barron’s. The problem is that the rally may also be overblown, she believes: “The markets are rising much more sharply than they should, given that 90% of what happened last night was expected, and the 10% of new information should be viewed as bearish,” she noted.
The price of Brent crude fell 8.7% over the course of the day to $94.62 per barrel. This is the lowest closing price since August 31, according to MarketWatch. Over the three trading days this week, the commodity lost nearly 20%—the largest decline for such a period since April 22, 2020, the publication reports. The Democrats’ election victory has bolstered investors’ hopes for an end to the U.S. war with Iran.
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