Wall Street Votes Thumbs Up

Summary of business headlines: Stocks rally as 120 million Americans head to the polls, Wall Street glad election is over; AOL surges on stronger-than-anticipated profits and revenues; News Corp posts higher sales; Amazon set for e-book EU victory.

Published

7 months ago

Categories

Finance

Topics

US Politics, United States

People

Rupert Murdoch

Places

United States of America

Companies

News Corporation, Amazon, Inc., Aol Inc., Boeing

Transcript

Wall Street is looking forward to the days after the election. Investors are just happy the two-year process is finally coming to a close with some 120 million Americans expected to have cast their vote in this year's presidential race. The Dow tacked on 130 points as the market enjoyed broad-based gains, though off the highs of the day. Douglas Blake, a wealth manager at Newbridge Securities is calling this the sigh of relief rally. SOUNDBITE: DOUGLAS BLAKE, WEALTH MANAGER, NEWBRIDGE SECURITIES (ENGLISH) SAYING: "To this point we've been seeing such nasty infighting in Washington, such partisanship, and at this point at least we know there will be a resolution and at that time we can go forward and figure everything else out. But one less thing to worry about, one less bit of uncertainty, and certainly the market is happy about that." Defense stocks like United Technologies and Boeing were the Dow's biggest point gainers, suggesting, some on Wall Street were betting on a Romney victory. The move in AOL however had nothing to do with the election. Quarterly revenues and profits beat forecast thanks to the strongest online ad sales growth in seven years. Shares of AOL surged 22 percent, the biggest percentage gainer on the Big Board. In earnings-related news: Rupert Murdoch's News Corp media empire boasted higher revenues thanks to his cable networks. Meanwhile, Amazon is set for a legal victory in the European Union. Two sources say regulators there will accept a deal by Apple and four publishers accused of anti-trust practices aimed at preventing Amazon from selling e-books at a cheaper price than Apple. A decision is expected next month. Amazon declined to comment and Apple did not respond to emails. As far as European markets go - earnings helped turn the market higher.