New York (AFP)

The New York Stock Exchange continued its momentum on Tuesday to end up sharply on the day of a US presidential election that promises to be tight and whose final results may not be known until in the coming days.

Its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) gained 2.06% to 27,480.03 points.

The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, rose 1.85% to 11,160.57 points and the broader S&P 500 index gained 1.78% to 3,369.16 points.

If the national polls give Democratic candidate Joe Biden the advantage over President Donald Trump, the race promises to be close in several key states and the results of the poll may not be known as of Tuesday evening.

Laura McCandless of Schaeffer hoped "a winner would be determined quickly, the influx of mail-in ballots is causing many to fear a late result and the confusion it could cause."

Patrick O'Hare of Briefing was more optimistic, believing that the market "can handle the idea of ​​delayed results better than that of disputed results".

Either way, investors on Tuesday regained a taste for risk in orderly ranks, ready to turn the page on a presidential campaign under high tension.

The New York Stock Exchange seemed to breathe a sigh of relief like, "Thank God, it's over!" Summed up TD Ameritrade's JJ Kinahan.

The VIX, dubbed the fear index, which measures the volatility of the New York Stock Exchange, has eased relatively calmly falling back to around 34 points after its second peak in four months last week when it approached 40.

By March during the shock of the pandemic, it had climbed to over 80.

Whoever the future president is, many brokers, like Mr. Kinahan, believed that "a lot of money will be spent, whether in the form of economic stimulus or infrastructure investments".

Among the actions of the day, the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba fell (-8.13%) after the announcement of the postponement of the IPO of the online payment specialist Ant Group, founded like him by billionaire Jack Ma.

The online service Paypal dropped 4.23% after disappointing forecasts.

The big names in tech have regained strength, starting with Twitter (+ 5.70%) strongly penalized last week.

Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook gained around 1.50%.

Wayfair (+ 7.24%), the furniture distributor, whose share has quadrupled since the start of the pandemic, has jumped after spectacular quarterly results, showing a 67% increase in sales.

In the bond market, the 10-year rate on US debt rose sharply to 0.8959% against 0.8434% the day before as the dollar fell and the US Central Bank (Fed) held a monetary policy meeting on Wednesday, the day after the election.

© 2020 AFP