Renewed Stimulus Talks Rally Markets Despite Chaotic Presidential Debate

Despite a chaotic first presidential debate Tuesday night, the U.S. stock market rallied strong Wednesday as stimulus talks resumed, a stronger than expected September jobs report, and positive coronavirus vaccine updates.

The biggest jumps were seen in the Dow Jones and NASDAQ, both of which were up significantly since Wall Street opened for the day. As of 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, the Dow Jones was up more than 525 points while NASDAQ was more than 180 points up.

CNBC cited the renewed stimulus talks as the biggest driving force, which was reinforced by U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

“I say we’re going to give it one more serious try to get this done and I think we’re hopeful that we can get something done,” Mnuchin said during Wednesday’s Delivering Alpha conference. “I think there is a reasonable compromise here.”

Renewed talks about another stimulus package started Monday after House Democrats introduced a reworked $2.2 trillion HEROES Act. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was meeting with Mnuchin and White House officials about the package and hopes they can reach an agreement soon.

“Democrats are making good on our promise to compromise with this updated bill, which is necessary to address the immediate health and economic crisis facing America's working families right now,” Pelosi said in an open letter to House Democrats.

“We have been able to make critical additions and reduce the cost of the bill by shortening the time covered for now," she added.

The next contributor was the positive data published by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals on Tuesday after the markets closed. Regeneron is currently working on its REGN-COV2 drug, which the company said reduced coronavirus levels and improved non-hospitalized patients’ condition.

“The greatest treatment benefit was in patients who had not mounted their own effective immune response, suggesting that REGN-COV2 could provide a therapeutic substitute for the naturally-occurring immune response,” Regeneron’s chief scientific officer George D. Yancopoulos said in a press release.

Third was the September job report by Automatic Data Processing. It said private sector created 749,000 new jobs and the sector’s job growth was the strongest it had been in three months.

Best estimates for September had 650,000 new jobs created coming off an August where less than 500,000 private sector jobs were created.

Despite the strong rise, analysts cautioned a downturn could just as easily happen thanks to the volatility caused by the upcoming November elections. Some analysts doubled down on this notion after a chaotic first debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Tuesday.

The markets appeared to prepare for such a scene with hesitant trading and a small slide on Tuesday preceding the debate.

“The presidential debate reinforced the market concerns that Trump isn’t going to accept his defeat that easily,” AvaTrade told MarketWatch. “This creates the biggest risk for not only the U.S. stock market rally but we are seeing the global stock market taking a nose dive today.”