US stocks end higher, Meta jumps as investors eye mid-terms

Nov 7 (Reuters) – Wall Street ended sharply higher on Monday as investors focused on Tuesday’s midterm elections that will determine control of Congress, while shares of Meta Platforms jumped on a report of suppressions jobs at parent company Facebook.

Republicans are favored to win a majority in the House of Representatives in the election, with the Senate being ranked by lot by nonpartisan forecasters. Republicans could use a majority in either chamber to hamper Democratic President Joe Biden’s agenda.

“The likelihood of the Republicans taking the House or the Senate is quite high, thus guaranteeing some form of stalemate over the next two years. This would likely eliminate tax hikes and any kind of big spending potentially perceived as inflationary. the table,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird.

Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) jumped more than 6% following a report that the company planned to begin large-scale layoffs this week. The stock has fallen more than 70% so far this year.

Recently beaten shares of Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Google-parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O) each rose more than 2% and were strong contributors to the S&P 500 gain for the session.

This week, the focus will also be on US consumer price data for October, which will be released on Thursday, for clues as to the extent to which rapid interest rate hikes in the US Federal Reserve are helping to cool the economy.

Four Fed policymakers said on Friday they would consider a smaller rate hike at their next policy meeting, despite new data showing another month of robust jobs gains and only small signs of progress in reducing unemployment. inflation.

Traders are divided on whether the Fed will raise interest rates by 50 basis points or 75 basis points at the US central bank meeting in December.

“All other things being equal, whether the terminal rate is at 4.5%, 5% or above, monetary policy is poised to have a negative effect on the economy as we approach 2023” , Glenmede investment strategists wrote in a note on Monday.

Unofficially, the S&P 500 climbed 0.96% to end the session at 3,806.90 points.

The Nasdaq gained 0.85% to 10,564.52 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.31% to 32,827.00 points.

Of the 11 S&P 500 sector indices, eight advanced, led by communication services (.SPLRCL) which rose 1.83%, followed by a 1.73% gain in energy (.SPNY) .

All three major U.S. indexes have slumped this year, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq (.IXIC) down 33% on fears that aggressive monetary policy tightening could cripple the U.S. economy.

Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC.O) jumped 66% after former US President Donald Trump hinted at another White House offer. The blank check company has agreed to take social media startup Trump Media & Technology Group Corp public.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) gained 4.1% after VillageMD, a primary care provider backed by the pharmacy chain, announced it would acquire Summit Health in a deal valued at nearly $9 billion.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones in the S&P 500 (.AD.SPX) by a ratio of 2.8 to one.

The S&P 500 posted 18 new highs and 15 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 93 new highs and 221 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was relatively light, with 10.5 billion shares traded, compared to an average of 11.8 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions.

Reporting by Shubham Batra and Amruta Khandekar in Bengaluru and Noel Randewich in Oakland, California; Additional reporting by Shreyashi Sanyal and Devik Jain; Editing by Maju Samuel, Chizu Nomiyama and Deepa Babington

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