The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded higher on Wednesday as it tried to recover its footing following a sell-off in the previous session.
The blue-chip index gained 211 points, or 0.5%. The S&P 500 rose 0.1%, while the Nasdaq Composite was trading 0.1% lower.
Shares of Morgan Stanley rose 7% after topping Wall Street estimates for both its third-quarter earnings and revenue. United Airlines also reported better-than-expected results, sending shares 11% higher.
The reporting period is off to a solid start. About 50 S&P 500 stocks have posted third-quarter earnings thus far, with 79% of those beating expectations, FactSet data shows.
The Dow and S&P 500 both slipped from their recent records on Tuesday, falling more than 0.7% each. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1%.
Despite this increased market volatility, CFRA Research chief investment analyst Sam Stovall still believes that equities could rise in the short term, especially when considering September’s rally to new heights.
“Usually Septembers of election years are negative. However, if they’re positive, then that also implies a positive October, as compared with the more normal negative October,” he told CNBC. “In the final two months of election years the market has risen almost every time with all sizes, styles and sectors posting positive returns. So investors are very much aware that the momentum is behind the market.”
Still, Stovall didn’t take the possibility of a pullback off the table, since equities look so stretched at their current valuations. But the investor said that any sell-off would most likely happen after the election and probably not until the new year.
“We might end up being vulnerable to some exogenous event that could cause a shakeout in equity prices,” he added.
