Stocks Look for Direction

Updated from 11:14 a.m. EST

A day before the U.S. chooses a new president, stocks on Wall Street were experiencing mixed trading Monday, as traders prepared for another week of quarterly earnings and turned their eyes toward Tuesday's election. Some bearish economic data releases were also tempering investor enthusiasm.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was lately gaining 42 points at 9367, and the S&P 500 was adding 3.2 points at 972. The Nasdaq gained 15 points to 1736.

The election is potentially significant in that there's a chance that Democrats will control the House, the Senate and the presidency, said Alan Gayle, senior investment strategist at RidgeWorth Capital Management. "The market would be very happy if we had gridlock, because that would reduce the chances that there would be significant rule changes," said Gayle.

However, said Gayle, "I think to a certain extent the pervasiveness of the financial crisis has probably had a more dominant impact on investing leading up to the election and will continue over the near term." He said that performance by health-care stocks, which would typically decline in anticipation of Democratic rule, have lately held up relative to the major averages because they are defensive against a downturn.

Financial-sector turmoil continued to hold investors' attention. The Wall Street Journal reported that as many as 1,800 public companies could be signing up for investments by the Treasury Department under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Meanwhile, leveraged-buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts was delaying plans to come public as the credit crisis hurt its capitalization standing. KKR said in a statement it would hold off on buying Amsterdam-listed KKR Private Equity until next year.