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Wall Street Waits for U.S. Presidential Election

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It’s almost here: Election Day 2020. To many, it feels as though this election “season” has been going on the moment the 2018 midterms concluded. Market futures are up nicely this morning, not on any particular news item or blowout earnings report, but because the market hates uncertainty, and Election Day will finally conclude with a POTUS decided for a next term… or will it?

We also start a new month in a more hopeful mood, after a rough October that lived up to its historical billing of the month most difficult to make money in equities. The Dow fell the most since March, down 6.5% in October, followed by the S&P 500, -2.8% and the Nasdaq, -2.3%. This morning, we see a nice reversal with the Dow +350 a half hour ahead of the opening bell, based somewhat on strength in Chinese PMI numbers over night, which sent Asian markets higher across the board.

We also see some strong quarterly reports this morning, starting with Clorox (CLX - Free Report) , which is up 3.5% on its news: earnings of $3.22 per share flew past the $2.34 estimate and more than doubled the year-ago $1.59 billion. The corporation with household brand names like Clorox wipes, Glad bags, Pine-Sol and Liquid Plumr brought in revenues of $1.92 billion, which beat the Zacks consensus by 9.12% and the year-ago $1.51 billion in sales. Shares are not up more than 38% year to date, and hav e outperformed estimates in every quarter but one over the last four years.

Estee Lauder (EL - Free Report) is up 4% directly following its fiscal Q1 earnings report, which posted $1.44 per share versus 90 cents expected (though down from the $1.67 per share in the year-ago quarter on slower sales of makeup and perfume) and $3.56 billion in sales, which topped the expected top-line by 2.15% ($3.90 billion a year ago). Shares are now up roughly 10% year to date.

Lumber Liquidators (LL - Free Report) , benefiting on price points for household building products in the U.S., more than doubled expectations to 67 cents per share from 30 cents in the Zacks consensus and a mere 8 cents reported in the year-ago quarter. Revenues of $295.83 million beat expectations by 3.5%, up from the year-ago $264 million. Shares gained 11% on the news, and were already up more than 125% year to date.


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