“It’s the war, stupid.” - James Carville JD Vance, basically

It’s ok, you guys… the election cycle can’t hurt you anymore. Democrats won the House and the Senate on Tuesday, and Republicans even got their cheeks clapped in Texas, where Democrats flipped the governor’s mansion. We used to be a proper country… 

Thankfully, Donny Gridlock (read: President Trump) said he’d accept the results. Because of this, the Dow was up 1,511 points (2.9%) Wednesday afternoon, back above 53,000 for the first time since Sept. 8. That has it on pace for its best day since April 9, 2025, when Trump paused his reciprocal tariffs. The S&P 500 gained 1.8%, and the Nasdaq added 1.9%. In other words, Wall Street made it all of four days into No-Nut November before mooning again. 

Per Morgan Stanley, investors “like gridlock… they don’t like a party with too much power.” Donny’s already doing his part. He posted a bright red MAGA VETO hat to Truth Social. He also promised that Democrats will “send over things that are insane and I’ll veto them.” Which, to be fair, they probably will.

Meanwhile, JD Vance kicked off his 2028 campaign by throwing Donny under the bus, posting that “the reason we lost is the war” in Iran. U.S. crude tanked more than 8% as traders bet the blowout means more pressure to end it, and stonks extended their gains. Donny disagreed, of course: “I don’t think it was the war. I think it was the gas prices.” Spoiler: those are high because of the war.

The big swingin’ grocers at Walmart added 4% on hopes of a gas-price rollback, and Bank of America rose 3% as investors looked outside of tech. Friendly reminder, BofA’s own Michael Hartnett warned that a Democratic Senate and a blue Texas could trigger a “big slump” of more than 10%. 

Elsewhere, in stonk land, the data center crowd got bodied. Voters rejected data centers in 40 of 41 local ballot measures, and Texas’ new governor ran on an immediate moratorium. CoreWeave fell 7%, and Texas-based SpaceX slid about 4%. But pour one out for the richest man in the world, who spent $474M backing Republicans. Elon’s reaction? “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time.” #classic. 

Apple, on the other hand, mooned 6% to a record $354.33 on the anti-AI trade, good for a cool $5.12T market cap. Slower data center construction means cheaper memory chips, and the iPhone maker barely spends on AI anyway (read: Siri finally paid off).

As for McDonald’s, shares rose 2% on mixed results. Earnings beat ($3.57 a share vs. $3.38), revenue missed ($7.16B vs. $7.29B), and U.S. same-store sales slipped just 0.2%, better than the 0.5% drop the Street feared. Rare W… even if the McFlurry machine is still broken.

Oh, and Trump Media had a worse day than the GOP, falling 11%. Donny owns 41% of the company, which owns Truth Social. Woof. 

All in all, it turns out Wall Street’s favorite kind of government is one that can’t get it up. It’s the gridlock, stupid…

Until next time, friends! 

If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.

☕ Market Gossip

> Meta Kicks Off Debt Offering in Push to Fund AI Investments (Bloomberg): Zero Zucks given (sup, S&P)…

> Researchers warned of North Korean hacking tactics years before record $6.3B Binance heist (TechCrunch): Upon further review… there were signs.

> OpenAI Raises Less Than Half of $30 Billion Target in Latest Round (Wall Street Journal): “Rookie numbers in this racket…” - Super Dario, probably… 

> JetBlue raises bag fees for third time in a year as fuel costs bite (CNBC): Define “Bagholders”

 

“WTF” Meme of the Day

“Tweet of the year” award goes to…

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Apple, Meta, and McDonalds as mentioned in the article.