US stocks open election week higher

Wall Street stocks opened a news-jammed week higher Monday, recovering some of last week's losses ahead of the US presidential election.

Investors were girding for a potentially tumultuous period in the US, where tensions are high ahead of Tuesday's contest as the candidates make their final appeals to voters and election experts warn that a winner may not be declared quickly.

About 10 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.1 percent at 26,798.49.

The broad-based S&P 500 also gained 1.1 percent to 3,305.19, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 1.0 percent to 11,024.21.

The major indices last week suffered their worst losses in the week and month since March as European countries imposed new restrictions to combat the coronavirus and Covid-19 cases continued to rise sharply in the United States.

Besides the US election, investors are also looking ahead to a Federal Reserve meeting and a trove of economic data, especially the key October jobs report.

"We are entering a marathon week that spans a presidential election, a meeting of the Federal Reserve and the latest snapshot of the coronavirus-hit labor market, and another pile of Q3 earnings reports," Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities, said in a note.

"All have the potential to roil markets."