U.S. stocks rise ahead of presidential election results; Why is Apple’s stock missing the Election Day rally?

“U.S. stocks rose, sending the Standard & Poor's 500 Index higher for a second straight day, as American voters went to the polls to pick a president,” Rita Nazareth and Adria Cimino report for Bloomberg. “The S&P 500 rose 0.8 percent to 1,428.35 at 4 p.m. in New York. ‘We're moving closer to a definition on the election front,’ said Mark Luschini, who helps manage $54 billion as chief investment strategist for Philadelphia-based Janney Montgomery Scott LLC. ‘It's offering investors reason to say: we move from the unknown category regardless of the outcome.’”

“U.S. voters decide today between giving President Barack Obama another four years in office or replacing him with Republican challenger Mitt Romney,” Nazareth and Cimino report. “The next president will need to address a so-called fiscal cliff of more than $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts that take effect in 2013 unless Congress can reach a budget compromise.”

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“For most of the Election Day, Wall Street has been on a rally mode, with almost every asset category and every stock heading north,” Panos Mourdoukoutas writes for Forbes.

“One popular stock, however, isn't participating in the rally: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL). After gaining slightly in early morning trade and touching $590, the stock was heading south towards the $580 mark in the afternoon,” Mourdoukoutas writes. “What's upsetting traders this time around?”

Mourdoukoutas writes, “My theory is that Apple isn't an election-sensitive stock. It doesn't stand to benefit from the election of one candidate or another as are energy, healthcare, materials companies. That means that it is trading on its own merits, and most notably a lackluster earnings report; and a looming tablet war, as I discussed in previous pieces.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Quarterly revenue of $36.0 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.2 billion, or $8.67 per diluted share – record September quarter results – is “lackluster?”

[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]