Wall Street

people are digesting is that a split government is OK, and we can deal with this,” said Melda Mergen, deputy global head of equities at Columbia Threadneedle. “No big changes are expected anytime soon on the policy side.”

She cautioned, though, that the initial moves for the market may not last. “It’s a very quick reaction without knowing the final results,” she said. “It’s emotional rather than rational.”

Much of Wednesday’s strength for Wall Street was due to big gains for technology stocks. Investors have increasingly seen these stocks as some of the safer bets in the market, able to grow their profits even in a pandemic as more of daily life shifts online.

They don’t need a big stimulus effort for the economy as much as other companies, and the likelihood of Washington approving such a package dropped with the chances of a Democratic sweep. That led to the much better performance for the tech-heavy Nasdaq over other indexes. Microsoft rose 4.8%, Amazon climbed 6.3%, Facebook surged 8.3%, and Google’s parent company gained 6.1%.

Cigna, UnitedHealth Group and Anthem were among the biggest gainers in the S&P 500, as investors bid up health care stocks.

Other areas of the stock market, where profits are more dependent on the strength of the economy, lagged behind. Financial stocks in the S&P 500 dropped 1.3%. Companies that make construction materials and could have benefited from a big infrastructure plan under a Democratic sweep also fell.