Today was Election Day, and on Wall Street, that was cause for a celebration. Investors seemed pleased to have voting underway without major hitches, and major market benchmarks sustained their recovery from the big pullback during the last week of October. Gains for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 0.56%), S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.88%), and Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC -2.05%) amounted to as much as 2%.
Today's stock market
|
Index |
Percentage Change |
Point Change |
|---|---|---|
|
Dow |
2.06% |
555 |
|
S&P 500 |
1.78% |
59 |
|
Nasdaq Composite |
1.85% |
203 |
Data source: Yahoo! Finance.
Electric vehicle (EV) stocks seemed to have the inside lane to gains on Tuesday, as Tesla (TSLA -1.92%) led the entire sector higher. But the news wasn't as good for Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group Holding (BABA 0.28%), which fell due to controversy surrounding the initial public offering of one of its key business units.
Turn up the lights
Tesla was higher by nearly 6% on Tuesday. Although some commentators attributed the move simply to a flight to more growth-oriented stocks, there was a definite sense of bullishness throughout the EV industry today.
The Tesla Semi. Image source: Tesla.
One thing driving excitement in the sector was the completion of the latest merger by a special purpose acquisition company. Lordstown Motors (RIDE 1.11%) started trading under its new ticker symbol on Tuesday, and its stock soared 22% after its combination with DiamondPeak Holdings went through.
Moreover, investors seem to anticipate that the results of the election could be positive for players across the industry. China's NIO (NIO -5.00%) picked up another 7% Tuesday after a nice gain on Monday, while newly public Fisker (FSRN -14.37%) rose 3%. Workhorse Group (WKHS 5.84%), which is closely connected to Lordstown, saw its shares rise 11%.
The EV market is big enough to support Tesla and its host of smaller peers. If a transformation away from internal combustion vehicles takes place, then it's likely that one or more of Tesla's competitors will end up as a legacy automaker in the not-so-distant future.
This Ant just got stepped on
Not all stocks moved higher on Tuesday, though. Alibaba dropped more than 8% as the Chinese internet giant faced an unexpected setback in its efforts to tap the public capital markets.
Alibaba had anticipated doing its initial public offering of its Ant Group today in Shanghai and Hong Kong, but regulators in China chose to suspend the IPO before it could occur. Ant Group is the company behind the popular Alipay digital wallet, which is a leading financial product in the Chinese market. The company is also a major money manager.
Some news sources pointed to comments from Alibaba CEO Jack Ma that might have been more critical of financial regulators than the Chinese government would have liked. In explaining the IPO suspension, the Shanghai Stock Exchange pointed to the need for Ma and Ant Group CEO Eric Jing to meet with regulators to resolve issues related to the company and the financial industry.
At this point, it's unclear when the IPO might occur or whether significant terms of the offering might change. With Ma having been set to have controlling interest in Ant Group once it was spun off, it might be necessary to arrange for a divestiture or other strategic move in order for the IPO to happen.
