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Hello, this is Leonie Kidd with today’s edition of Morning Squawk.
Cooler heads are prevailing after the monster rally that drove the best day for the Dow in over a year and a half.
Investors are now assessing the impact of a new Democratic controlled Congress and how that changes the market landscape.
Happening now: Pause for thought
Futures are mixed across Wall Street after the Dow closed its best day since April 2025, soaring over 1,500 points on the Democrats’ decisive midterm victory.
A huge boost for stocks came from the plunging oil price. Brent and WTI have settled lower after falling over 8% in Wednesday’s session. That came as the Trump administration admitted the role the Iran war had played in the poor Republican results.
The U.S. Capitol building is seen in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 2, 2026.
Jemal Countess | AFP | Getty Images
It has been a mixed handover from Asia, where Japan’s Nikkei and South Korea’s Kospi fell sharply amid a deepening tech rout, despite strength across the wider market. European stock markets are broadly higher.
President Donald Trump told CNBC’s Eamon Javers in a brief call late Wednesday that he can work with Democratic majorities in the next Congress on “many more things than people understand.”
Analysis: Analysts have told CNBC about the drivers behind the monster rally, with Generali’s Thomas Hempell saying Trump’s openness to collaboration shows “more adverse polarization can be avoided.” Relief rally: Deutsche Bank’s George Saravelos said Trump’s acceptance of the results will “act as a break on extreme policy outcomes and bring down risk premia.” Coming up: We get the view from the Federal Reserve when CNBC’s Steve Liesman speaks with Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin at 9 a.m. ET. He has previously said consumers are “exhausted and frustrated” with high prices.Big Movers: Musk meltdown
The pressure is still on Elon Musk’s companies.
Tesla and SpaceX are down once again in premarket trading, after falling over 3% during yesterday’s session.
Why it matters: The selling pressure centered around Musk’s companies after his $474 million election gamble failed. Musk now has fewer allies in Congress and more obstacles in Texas. The Billionaires’ view: CNBC’s Luke Fountain reports on how Wall Street’s billionaires are reacting to the result, with Virgin’s Richard Branson and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman calling for money to get out of politics, while Elon Musk joked his “election-interfering space lasers” had failed.
A video displays Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, after the company’s initial public offering at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York on June 12, 2026.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Earnings Impact: Chip off Qualcomm’s shoulder
One of the biggest early decliners is Qualcomm. Shares are down over 9% in premarket trading after fourth-quarter smartphone chip sales missed estimates.
Analysis: Seaport analyst Jay Goldberg said Qualcomm’s data center business is barely offsetting the losses from its smartphones.Price targets: JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and TD Cowen have all cut their price targets for the stock to between $185-$200 a share. Coming up: CNBC speaks to Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon today at 12:20 p.m. ET after he told investors, “We don’t have a demand issue.”
Qualcomm Inc. President and CEO Cristiano Amon speaks during the company’s press event for CES 2022 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on January 4, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethan Miller | Getty Images
Get Morning Squawk directly in your inboxCrypto Watch: Cautious rebound
Cryptocurrencies are cautiously higher overnight as investors assess how much the new Democratic composition for Congress will impact Washington’s view.
Bitcoin is hovering around the $80,000 mark, lifting the broader crypto space.
Why it matters: CNBC’s Tayana Macheel will look at how the midterm results could reset the political calculus for crypto, ushering in a more adversarial approach and pushing industry-friendly legislation like the CLARITY Act to the back burner. What next?: Experts told CNBC’s Make It that they should not expect immediate change, saying “platforms will keep offering the products they offer today, and they still have friendly regulators at the SEC and CFTC who are approving an ever-wider range of crypto products.”And Finally…
Analysis: The Democrats have one chance to extract concessions from Trump
The electoral sweep by Democrats on Tuesday night injects a new, unstable dynamic into the single biggest political risk to financial markets in the coming year: the debt limit. Unless a defeated Republican Party makes a swift and unlikely show of unity to take the issue off the table in its last few weeks in power, the protracted fight that will unfold is set to be nastier than ever, adding volatility to an already shaky bond market.
— CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Spencer Kimball, Pippa Stevens, Luke Fountain, Matt Peterson and Mike Winters contributed to this report.
Jack Sommers edited this edition.