Wall Street stocks finished lower Monday following a choppy session as markets gird for volatility connected to the US presidential election.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump embarked on a final blitz in swing-state campaigning ahead of in- person voting on Tuesday. Polls show the race as neck and neck.

Analysts have been predicting that stocks would bounce around until the political situation is clearer. The election spells potentially major implications for tax and trade policy, as well as impacts on individual sectors.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 0.6 percent at 41,794.60.

The broad-based S&P 500 declined 0.3 percent to 5,712.69, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index also shed 0.3 percent to 18,179.98.

While the presidential election has been viewed as a toss-up, markets overwhelmingly expect the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by a quarter point on Thursday.

Another big potential catalyst for market activity this week will be a meeting of Chinese policy makers in which officials are expected to hash out a major stimulus package.

Among individual companies, Constellation Energy tumbled 12.5 percent along with other nuclear power equities after US energy regulators rejected a nuclear power supply proposal for an Amazon data center, raising worries about other similar projects.

Boeing rose 0.3 percent as striking members of the machinist union in the Seattle region weighed the latest contract proposal. The vote by some 33,000 machinists in could pave the way for production to resume at two factories  after a more than seven-week stoppage.

Marriott International  dropped 1.6 percent as it reported lower profits, with analysts pointing to China’s economic slowdown and sluggishness in US leisure travel as drags on the results.

Vanguard News