Futures tied to the Dow Jones industrial average rose 28 points, or 0.1%. S&P 500 futures rose 0.1%, while Nasdaq 100 futures gained 0.2%. It follows a day of losses with the Dow down 646.89 points, or 1.95%. The Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 fell nearly 2.5 percent and about 2.1 percent, respectively. The decline came amid uncertainty arising from the US midterm elections. The market had hoped Republicans would take sweeping control of the House and Senate on Tuesday — a situation that would create a deadlock in Washington. Instead, key Senate races in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada will remain tightly contested. Indeed, the Senate race between incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker will go into a December runoff. Shares’ woes worsened late Wednesday after crypto exchange Binance announced it was abandoning plans to acquire rival FTX. This swept the tech sector and drove the price of bitcoin to lows last seen in 2020. The lack of clarity around the election, as well as uncertainty over incoming October consumer price index data and corporate earnings reports were the drivers around the selloff, said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at the Independent Advisor Alliance. “Those three things lead to uncertainty,” he said. “And, as everyone knows, markets really don’t like uncertainty.” The October CPI report, due on Thursday at 8:30 AM. ET, is the next point of focus for investors. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected the headline CPI to rise in October by 0.6 percent from September, or 7.9 percent from a year ago. It’s a key report for the Federal Reserve, which will meet again in mid-December. Weekly jobless claims are also expected to be released on Thursday morning.
