US close: Stocks sharply higher following Trump's re-election victory

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 3.57 % at 43,729.93, while the S&P 500 advanced 2.53% to 5,929.04 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 2.95% firmer at 18,983.47.

The Dow closed a whopping 1,508.05 points higher on Wednesday, the blue chip's biggest post-election rally in more than a century.

America headed to the polls on Tuesday in what was widely considered to be a deadlocked race between former president Trump and vice president Kamala Harris.

Early on Wednesday, Trump was projected to have defeated his Democratic rival after winning 292 Electoral College votes, including the key swing states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. The Republican Party was also projected to win back the Senate, while the race for the House of Representatives was still ongoing but the Republican Party was in the lead at the time of writing, leaving the potential for a "red sweep".

Stocks linked to Trump traded higher, with shares in both Tesla, of which chief executive Elon Musk has been a vocal Trump supporter, and Trump Media & Technology trading firmly in the green, as did bank stocks.

Bitcoin also surged to an all-time high of $75,000 on the back of hopes for relaxed regulation on cryptocurrencies, while the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield surged to 4.437% due to speculation that Trump's proposed tax cuts and other spending plans would spark economic growth but also widen the fiscal deficit and further accelerate inflation.

On the macro front, mortgage applications sunk 10.8% week-on-week in the seven days ended 1 November, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, a sixth consecutive decline following a 0.1% drop in the prior week. Applications plunged 35% across October as a whole due to a 67 basis point monthly rise in benchmark interest rates.

In the corporate space, embattled drugstore retailer CVS Heatlh posted mixed Q3 results as increased medical expenses weighed on the company's bottom line.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com