Wall Street climbs ahead of Election Day

Stocks rose in all the major indexes on Monday by roughly a percentage point. The S&P 500 rose by 1 percent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.3 percent and the Nasdaq added 0.9 percent. The spike in trading comes just before Election Day.

Why the pre–Election Day gains? Investors could be betting that Republicans will take control of at least one house of Congress. Markets tend to perform more positively in a climate of political gridlock, according to Lori Calvasina, head of U.S. equity strategy at RBC Capital Markets. And historically, when a Democratic White House has shared power with a split or Republican Congress, stocks have seen stronger gains than usual.

Dig deeper: Listen to Nick Eicher’s conversation with David Bahnsen on The World and Everything in It podcast about the government’s October jobs report.