Wall Street rallies on likelihood of divided US Congress, Fed stands pat

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.75 per cent to 28,334.47, while the S&P 500 gained 1.91 per cent

US stocks jumped on Thursday as investors bet that Republicans would retain control of the Senate and block any major policy changes under a possible Joe Biden White House that could dampen corporate profits.

With votes still being counted in battleground states, investors were abandoning cautious pre-election positioning, driving all of Wall Street's main indexes up for a fourth straight session.

While a fiscal stimulus package is now widely expected, the size of any deal reached in a divided Congress is likely to be much smaller than anticipated. This in turn will pressure the US Federal Reserve to pump more funds into