the dow was down more than 500 points wednesday afternoon in the final hour of trade as investors braced for thursdays key inflation reading and as several tight races left control of congress up for grabs the dow jones industrial average djia was down 508 points or 15 trading near 32678 after falling more than 600 points at the sessions low the sp 500 index sspx was off 16 and the nasdaq composite index comp was 2 lower investors had been gearing up for a potential republican sweep in the midterm elections but results so far point to anything even vaguely controversial in this congress which means we pretty much know that current fiscal policies will remain in place no tax cuts and no major spending bills for the next two years said brad mcmillan chief investment officer at commonwealth financial network in emailed comments while all eyes will be on tomorrows release of the consumerprice index for october investors also have been monitoring continued tumult in the crypto sector reports surfaced on thursday that indicated binance may be backing away from plans to take over assets of embattled crypto exchange ftx bitcoin btcusd was trading near 16800 thursday near a twoyear low according to coindesk