Updated Nov 5, 2026 – 11.05am, first published at 3.57am
Pinned post – 10.05AM
ASX rallies on Democratic midterm sweep, tech stocks soar
Australian shares jumped at the open on Thursday, taking their cue from Wall Street’s rally as the Republican Party lost control of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections.
The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index rose 134.6 points, or 1.5 per cent, to 8969.1 as at 10.03am (AEDT), as eight of the 11 sectors opened in the green, led by technology stocks.
The Dow Jones soared by more than 1300 points in New York, and the S&P 500 enjoyed its best day in months. Technology stocks rose despite stronger prospects of data centre regulation, backing Schroders’ view that tighter rules could actually work to cement the dominance of market leaders.
“Whether the Democrats go after the hyperscalers is not known to us, and any regulation of AI may actually play into the hands of Anthropic and OpenAI, who have been pushing for this for some time, mainly to defend their moat from new entrants than any altruistic purpose,” said Schroders head of fixed income and multi-asset Sebastian Mullins.
But it was not all good news for technology stocks. Tesla and SpaceX both fell after Elon Musk’s unsuccessful intervention in the election.
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