US STOCKS-Wall Street rises but market braced for choppy week on eve of U.S. election

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* Clorox rises after strongest sales growth in 2 decades
* Banks help value outperform growth names
* VIX dips from near four-month high

(New throughout, adds percent changes, volume data)
By Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW YORK, Nov 2 (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P closed higher on
Monday with the Nasdaq posting slimmer gains on the eve of the
U.S. presidential election, as investors girded for what could
be big market swings this week.
Last week all three indexes notched their biggest weekly
decline since March, and this week market participants largely
expected short-term volatility and the likelihood of major
long-term policy shifts related to taxes, government spending,
trade and regulation. The longer-term moves will depend on
whether Republican President Donald Trump or his Democratic
challenger Joe Biden wins the White House race.
Biden leads in national opinion polls, but races are tight
in battleground states that could tip the election to Trump.
Analysts said the outcome most likely to shake equity markets in
the near term would be no clear winner on Tuesday night.
While the Dow and S&P were on the plus side, they ended well
off session highs, and the Nasdaq dipped for awhile into the red
as mega-cap technology and tech-related names struggled to gain
traction after slumping in the prior week.
Growth stocks .RLG rose 0.54%, but were soundly
outperformed by beaten-down value names, which tend to provide
better returns coming out of a recession. The Russell 100 value
index .RLV jumped 1.92% to notch its biggest daily percentage
gain in nearly five months.
"It is hard to say whether this is sector rotation, an
institutional driven event today or traders speculating on what
might happen tomorrow," said Peter Giacchi, Head of DMM Floor
Trading at Citadel Securities in New York.
"The longer this plays out over the course of the week, if
it takes that long, the more volatility we could expect."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 423.45 points,
or 1.6%, to 26,925.05, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 40.28 points,
or 1.23%, to 3,310.24 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added
46.02 points, or 0.42%, to 10,957.61.
Investors betting on a Biden administration, which is
expected to deliver a massive fiscal stimulus and promote green
energy, have fueled a rally in solar stocks, industrials and
small-cap names in recent weeks. On the other hand, JP Morgan has listed Bank of America
BAC.N , Wells Fargo WFC.N and Citigroup C.N in its "Trump
basket" of stocks. The S&P banks index .SPXBK added 2.27%.
Energy .SPNY , materials .SPLRCM and industrials
.SPLRCI enjoyed the sharpest percentage gains among major S&P
sectors, climbing more than 2.7%.
The S&P 500 ended a turbulent week at near six-week lows on
Friday, after quarterly reports from technology mega-caps failed
to impress and as coronavirus cases surged in the United States
and Europe. The weekly percentage drop was the largest since
late March, which marked the end of a selloff that sent the
benchmark index into a bear market, or drop of more than 20%
from a high.
The CBOE volatility index .VIX , known as Wall Street's
fear gauge, inched lower after ratcheting up last week to the
highest in nearly four months.
Investors will also watch this week's Federal Reserve
two-day policy meeting, the monthly jobs report and earnings
from about a quarter of the S&P 500 companies.
Clorox Co CLX.N shares jumped 4.24% after reporting its
strongest quarterly sales growth in more than two decades and
raising its full-year revenue forecast. Market research firm Nielsen Holdings Plc NLSN.N rose
3.85% on plans to sell its consumer goods data unit for $2.7
billion to private equity firm Advent International.
But the S&P airlines index .SPCOMAIR fell 1.44% while
cruise operators Carnival Corp CCL.N , down 1.17% and Norwegian
Cruise Line Holdings Ltd NCLH.N , off 2.77% also lost ground,
reflecting fears over a relentless surge in COVID-19 cases.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
2.94-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.04-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 7 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 21 new highs and 55 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 9.01 billion shares, compared
with the 9.1 billion average for the full session over the last
20 trading days.