US Stocks Rally, Dow Soars 1,000 Points11/04 09:34

   U.S. stocks are surging Wednesday after President Donald Trump's party lost 
its sole control of Washington in the midterm elections.

   NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. stocks are surging Wednesday after President Donald 
Trump's party lost its sole control of Washington in the midterm elections.

   Stocks generally do well in the months following any midterm U.S. election, 
regardless of who wins, and the S&P 500 soared 1.8% toward its best day in 
three months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1,112 points, or 2.1%, as 
of 10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 2.4% higher.

   Stocks of solar-power companies helped lead the way as Wall Street tried to 
sort the winners and losers from the widespread losses for Republicans. 
Investors, meanwhile, see risks ahead for Trump's social-media company, the 
artificial-intelligence industry and businesses owned by Elon Musk, who donated 
heavily to Republicans.

   Strategists along Wall Street had been urging investors not to get swept up 
in the election because it may not matter much for the broad market in the long 
term. Prices for stocks depend more on where profits for companies and interest 
rates are heading than on who controls what in Washington.

   "Earnings trump elections," according to Brian Jacobsen, chief economic 
strategist at Annex Wealth Management.

   Still, Wall Street may have gotten a preferred political scenario as 
Democrats are set to take control of both the Senate and the House of 
Representatives. That could counterbalance Trump's White House, and Wall Street 
generally prefers split control of Washington because it lessens the risk of 
transformative changes to the economy.

   Much remains impossible to predict, of course, and Trump retains executive 
authority over key areas such as defense, foreign policy and in some instances 
trade.

   A downbeat forecast could be that "Trump is not now a lame duck, but an 
angry duck" who might restart tensions over tariffs and NATO allies' levels of 
military spending, said Carsten Brzeski, global chief of macro at ING Bank.

   An optimistic view, Brzeski said, is that Trump becomes "a tame duck ... 
that he will slow down any disruptive efforts and that he will put more focus 
on trying to win the Nobel Peace Prize by ending the two big wars without big 
disruption, and on trade, nothing happens but a few words."

   Here's a look at some of the moves rippling through financial markets:

   Trump Media and Tesla are down 

   Trump's social-media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, was one of the 
market's bigger losers following the election and dropped 9.5%. It had already 
come into the day with a loss of 55.1% for the year so far as Trump's approval 
ratings had weakened.

   Since briefly touching a peak of $175 five years ago, it's dropped toward 
$5. Its main business is Truth Social, which is most well known for Trump's 
postings on the platform.

   Elon Musk's businesses also struggled. Tesla fell 3.6%, and SpaceX sank 3%. 
Musk, a former top Trump adviser, is among the possible targets for 
investigations by a Democratic-controlled Congress.

   AI companies in general are under pressure 

   Trump has been a big backer of the AI industry, and Democratic control of 
Capitol Hill could mean more regulation or restrictions for the industry. 
Concerns have grown across political parties about AI in general.

   Investors see Democratic victories in Texas in particular as possibly 
slowing the buildout of further AI data centers.

   Nvidia, the chip company that quickly became the poster child of the frenzy 
around AI-related stocks, slipped 0.5% after falling as much as 2.8% earlier in 
the morning. CoreWeave, a company that rents out access to AI chips to 
customers over the loud, fell 6.8%

   Advanced Micro Devices, another chip giant, held up better. It rose 3.4% 
after reporting much stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts 
expected.

   Green power companies are up 

   Democratic control of Congress could light the way for companies in the 
solar and wind industries. First Solar jumped 11.1%, and Enphase Energy climbed 
11.6%.

   Bond yields are down 

   In the bond market, Treasury yields eased. That could be a signal that 
investors see less risk of Washington piling even more debt onto its already 
big mountain.

   Treasury yields had surged through the summer and reached their highest 
levels in decades because of worries about the U.S. government's big debt, 
along with higher inflation and other concerns. A Congress controlled by 
Democrats could provide a check against more spending and cuts to taxes that 
would widen Washington's deficit.

   The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.92% from 4.95% late Tuesday.

   Stocks rally in much of the world 

   Indexes climbed across most of the world. Stocks jumped 2.2% in Paris, 2.2% 
in Shanghai and 1.8% in London. Japan's Nikkei 225 was an outlier and fell 1.4%.

   Stocks worldwide got a boost from easing oil prices. Brent crude, the 
international standard, dropped 2.9% to $100.63 amid continued uncertainty 
about what the war with Iran will mean for the global energy industry.

   The price for the most actively traded contract in the Brent market has been 
veering between roughly $70 and $120 per barrel since just before the war with 
Iran began.