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US stocks slipped during a jittery session on Monday to kick off a week of potentially huge market-moving events — the presidential election and the Federal Reserve policy decision.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) dropped 0.3%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell by about the same amount. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led the declines, falling about 250 points, or 0.6%.
Monday's session was choppy ahead of Tuesday's election, a big risk event for markets. The new president — whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump — will set the course for the economy in the years that follow. The neck-and-neck race has investors bracing for volatility on Election Day itself.
Read more: The Yahoo Finance guide to the presidential election and what it means for your wallet
Weekend polls showed Harris with a shock lead in Iowa and gaining ground elsewhere — a sign the Democrat has a better chance of winning than Wall Street had calculated. The dollar dropped by the most in a month as traders recalculated bets on a Trump victory. Treasury yields also retreated, with the 10-year benchmark yield (^TNX) sliding almost 10 basis points to about 4.30%.
Also looming large is the Fed's two-day policy meeting, kicking off a day later than usual on Wednesday in light of the election.
Wall Street is convinced that Chair Jerome Powell will usher in a 0.25% rate cut on Thursday, despite signs of stubborn inflation and muddied job market signals. Given that, the focus is on what action the Fed might take at future meetings, with the market now seeing three fewer cuts through the end of 2025 than it previously expected.
Read more: What the Fed rate cut means for bank accounts, CDs, loans, and credit cards
In other markets, oil prices jumped nearly 3% after OPEC+, a group of major oil producers, decided to delay a planned hike in output by at least a month and Iran escalated Mideast tensions by warning of a "crushing response" to Israel's strikes.
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