Markets

panies like utilities and household goods makers.

On Wednesday investors bet on growth. Amazon jumped 6.9 percent to $1,755.49 and Microsoft gained 3.9 percent to $111.96, while Google’s parent company, Alphabet, picked up 3.6 percent to $1,108.24.

Steady, “defensive” stocks lagged the rest of the stock market. Those companies, which include utilities and household goods makers, tend to do well when stocks are in turmoil, but they’re less appealing when investors are betting on economic growth.

Industrial companies made strong gains, but they didn’t do as well as the rest of the market. While some investors hope that Trump and Congressional leadership will pass an infrastructure stimulus bill, they’ve had those hopes dashed more than once since he took office.

It’s not clear how the elections will affect the Trump policy Wall Street might be most concerned about: the trade dispute with China. Trump has imposed taxes of up to 25 percent on $250 billion of Chinese imports and threatened additional tariffs on top of those. Beijing has responded with tariffs on $110 billion of American goods.

A primary concern in Asia is the potential for trade tensions to hobble growth for export-reliant economies.

Economists at S&P Global, Oxford Economics and the Bank of America all agreed that government gridlock will likely result from the Democrats winning control of the House. But they don’t think a stalemate will automatically hinder economic growth.