Does the market know something you and I don't?
With an hour left in the trading session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 0.69%) is up more than 140 points. A full 28 of its 30 components are higher, with many up by more than 1%. The only laggards of the bunch are Intel (INTC -0.38%) and AT&T (T 1.17%), down by 0.55% and 0.17%, respectively.
The general mantra circulating throughout the market and financial news today is that the resolution of the election will be good for the markets, irrespective of who wins. According to Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co.: "I think it's a relief that hopefully the election will be over. Clients at this point have built cash ahead of the elections, and it looks like the market is anticipating a post-elections surge knowing [it] is finally over."
While I can't help but agree that we all can't wait for the mindless political banter of election season to end, I think it's a stretch to say that Wall Street doesn't have a dog in this fight. As my colleague Amanda Alix pointed out, a veritable Who's Who list of financial companies show up at the top of Mitt Romney's donor list, including Goldman Sachs (GS 1.59%), Bank of America (BAC 1.70%), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 1.44%), just to name a few. In addition, the biggest issue fueling the purported uncertainty in the market remains the fiscal cliff, which won't be solved today or this week -- or probably even this month.
Leading the Dow higher today are United Technologies (RTX -0.18%) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ -0.11%), both of which are up nearly 3%. While the former has had a relatively good year thus far, up by 7.2% year to date, the latter has struggled to generate satisfactory returns, given the headwinds in the personal-computer industry. And it's for the same reason that today's biggest Dow drag, Intel, is down by 11.6% for the year.
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