U.S. Stocks Mixed Ahead of Tuesday's Midterm Elections

By Liz Moyer

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks were mixed as investors await the midterm election on Tuesday, which could determine which party controls the next Congress.

At 10:31 ET (15:31 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 162 points, or 0.5% while the S&P 500 rose 0.1% and the NASDAQ Composite was down 0.3%.

A split government could pose an additional challenge to President Joe Biden’s ability to advance his agenda. Republicans have momentum going into Tuesday’s official election day, but a number of races still are extremely close.

Later this week, investors will see consumer price data for October, which could be another input as the Federal Reserve decides the next course of action on raising interest rates to tame inflation. Last week, the jobs report showed the economy created more jobs than expected last month, but the unemployment rate ticked up slightly.

The Fed has raised rates by a 0.75 percentage point at each of its past four meetings, but now the odds are growing that it will begin to ease off that aggressive stance. Some people are forecasting rates to rise a 0.5 percentage point at the Fed’s December meeting.

Shares of Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) fell 1.4% after it said it will expect smaller shipments of its top iPhone 14 models than it previously forecast. Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) shares rose more than 4.7% on reports it plans to lay off employees this week. 

Oil dipped. Crude Oil WTI Futures were down 0.1%, to $92.56 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures crude fell 0.1% to $98.42 a barrel. Gold Futures rose 0.2%, to $1679.