Post-Election Gap
Stock index futures are rallying after what turned out to be an expected election outcome - an unpopular president led to a loss of seats and a mixed Congress.
According to BofAML, that has preceded an annual return in the S&P 500 of 12%, so there's that.
On a much shorter time frame, this is one of the few times since the inception of the futures in 1982 when buyers were eager to step in before the open. Out 18 midterm and presidential elections since then, only 5 saw the futures gap up more than 0.5% the morning following a major election. For what it's worth, buyers managed to follow through on those gains throughout the day only once, though in the days following, returns were fine.
As we saw yesterday, when we get a split Congress with an unpopular president, stocks actually performed quite well in the months following, so as much as traders or investors can take from machinations in Washington, it's hard to find something that suggests a strong sell signal even with (or especially because of) Tuesday's results.