Global Equity Markets Flat, Polls Show Democrats Hold Seven Point Lead Over Republicans

The major Asian stock markets are trading mixed early Tuesday. Traders are ignoring Wall Street’s lead and primarily looking ahead to Tuesday’s mid-term elections.

Shares in Australia are slightly higher across all sectors with energy and materials posting the largest gains. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 is trading marginally higher. The Greater China markets were in largely negative territory during the early trade. Hong Kong is relatively flat.

U.S. Stock Market

The major U.S. equity indexes finished mixed on Monday with the benchmark S&P 500 Index and the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average posting gains. The tech-driven NASDAQ-100 Index finished lower.

The financial sector posted a solid gain, led by shares of Berkshire Hathaway’s Class B which climbed 4.7 percent after Warren Buffett disclosed over the weekend it bought back nearly $1 billion of its own shares in August. This news also drove up shares of several major banks including Citigroup, Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase.

The energy sector also rose significantly, led by shares of Chevron which jumped 3.7 percent. The energy firm was boosted by an upgrade from Credit Suisse from neutral to outperform. This news also helped underpin the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The NASDAQ Composite was driven lower by weakness in shares of Apple and Amazon which fell more than 2 percent.

Apple was downgraded by Rosenblatt Securities amid expectations of lower iPhone sales. Amazon fell after President Trump said his administration was looking into antitrust violations committed by the e-commerce giant.

U.S. Treasury Markets

U.S. Treasury yields fell on Monday as investors shifted their focus away from the economy and onto the upcoming mid-term elections.

Early in the session, traders continued to react to Friday’s solid U.S. Non-Farm Payrolls report, but switched their focus to the upcoming mid-term elections shortly after the opening.

On Friday, yields rose after a government report showed the economy added 250,000 jobs in October, much better than the 190,000 forecast. However, on Monday, the two-year yield retreated to 2.899 percent.

Latest Election Poll

The election-eve NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows Democrats leading by seven percentage points, 50 percent to 43 percent, among likely voters. That’s down from a nine-percentage point lead last month.