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 But Wall Street does not like uncertainty, so investors want to put the election behind them and focus on the fundamentals.
The fundamentals are grim. A day after the Institute for Supply Management revealed the worst monthly contraction in manufacturing activity and automakers reported the lowest level of U.S. car sales in more than 17 years, the market is expecting Commerce Department data at 10 a.m. Eastern time Tuesday to show the second straight monthly drop in factory orders during September.
But given how much the Dow Jones industrial average has shed this year -- the index is down 34.2 percent from its Oct. 9, 2007 peak of 14,164.53
-- many market watchers believe the economy's weakness could be priced in already.
Ahead of the market's open, Dow futures rose 183, or 1.96 percent, to 9,515. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures rose 20.10, or 2.07 percent, to 989.60, while Nasdaq 100 index futures rose 1.50, or 0.11 percent, to 1,338.50.
On Monday, the stock market closed narrowly mixed in light trading. The Dow did something that has become unheard of in recent months
-- it made just a single-digit point decline.
Early Tuesday, the dollar fell against most other major currencies, while gold prices rose.
Light, sweet crude rose 26 cents to $64.17 a barrel in premarket electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
In Asian trading, Japan's Nikkei index soared 6.27 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index edged up 0.3 percent. In morning trading in Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 rose 1.76 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 2.02 percent, and France's CAC-40 advanced 2.13 percent.
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On the Net:
New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com/
Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com/
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