World Shares Mostly Higher Wednesday   11/04 04:55

   World shares were mostly higher Wednesday after the U.S. midterm election 
yielded majorities for the Democrats in both houses of Congress.

   HONG KONG (AP) -- World shares were mostly higher Wednesday after the U.S. 
midterm election yielded majorities for the Democrats in both houses of 
Congress.

   U.S. futures edged higher and oil prices retreated.

   The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.2% and that for the Dow Jones Industrial 
Average rose 0.4%.

   The results were a decisive rebuke of Republican governance and will bring a 
new era of congressional resistance to U.S. President Donald Trump.

   Markets generally prefer that control of Washington be split between the 
Republicans and the Democrats. That is seen as offering less risk of sweeping 
policy changes that could reshape the economy.

   "The magnitude of the gains for the Democrats in the midterms does not 
change too much for the near-term policy outlook, given the party still lacks a 
filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and President Trump has veto power to 
block legislation," Stephen Brown of Capital Economics said in an analysis.

   Investors have mainly been preoccupied recently by issues related to 
artificial intelligence. Markets have been roiled by bouts of selling of 
technology shares by investors worried that AI-related share prices have shot 
too high.

   In early European trading, the CAC 40 in Paris rose 0.4% to 8,055.02. 
Britain's FTSE 100 edged 0.1% higher to 10,646.43, and Germany's DAX climbed 
0.5% to 25,995.13.

   The eurozone's flash consumer price index for October was due to be 
announced Wednesday. Traders are also watching for an interest rate decision by 
the Bank of England, due Thursday.

   In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 dipped 1.4% to 62,188.63.

   Shares of OpenAI investor SoftBank Group dropped 3.2%. Japanese memory 
chipmaker Kioxia Holdings tumbled 5.4%, paring losses as its guidance for the 
October-December period missed market expectations.

   South Korea's Kospi index rose 0.6% to 5,683.80, as memory chipmaker SK 
Hynix edged 0.1% lower, while Samsung Electronics slid 0.7%.

   In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng advanced 1.5% to 23,888.46, while the Shanghai 
Composite index gained 2.2% to 3,686.17, rebounding from its year-low on 
Tuesday.

   Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.6% to 8,834.50 after the central bank raised 
interest rates on Tuesday.

   Taiwan's Taiex lost 0.8%. India's Sensex climbed 0.3%.

   On Tuesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.4%, even though most of the stocks within the 
index fell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 197 points, or 0.4%, and 
the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.8%.

   Chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom were the strongest forces pushing the S&P 500 
upward. Also boosting the market were several companies that are spending 
heavily on AI. Microsoft, Amazon and Meta Platforms all rose more than 2%.

   Apple was long seen on Wall Street as a Big Tech company that's less 
dependent on AI. But it's still feeling the effects of the AI boom.

   Memory chips for computers have become more expensive because of the demand 
created by the rush to build AI data centers. Those higher costs are hitting 
Apple, which said it expects to make less profit from each $1 of its revenue 
during the final three months of this year.

   On the winning side Tuesday were stocks of several companies that reported 
stronger profits for the summer than analysts expected. DuPont rallied 8.6% for 
one of the biggest gains in the S&P 500, and Celanese climbed 5%.

   Companies are expected to continue to deliver big gains in profits as the 
U.S. economy keeps chugging along, even with high inflation and elevated 
interest rates.

   An encouraging report Tuesday on the U.S. job market said employers were 
advertising more job openings at the end of September than economists expected. 
That helped push the yield on the 10-year Treasury up to 4.96% from 4.91% late 
Monday.

   In other dealings Wednesday, the price of Brent crude, the international 
standard, rose 0.4% to $103.88 a barrel. U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 0.3% 
to $96.34 per barrel.

   The U.S. dollar fell to 158.17 Japanese yen from 158.69 yen. The euro rose 
to $1.1242 from $1.1194.