U.S. stocks drifted lower Monday ahead of a momentous week full of potential flashpoints in Washington, D.C., and around the world. The S&P 500 slipped 0.3%, though it remains near its record set last month.

U.S. stocks are slipping as some more steam comes out of Wall Street’s huge, record-breaking rally. The S&P 500 fell 0.4% in Wednesday morning trading.

Wall Street has a poor track record when it comes to forecasting the future performance of the stock market. Since 2020, there has been a 17-percentage-point discrepancy between analysts' median year-end forecast for the S&P 500 and where the index actually finished each year, according to Goldman Sachs.

Risk appetite returned with gluttonous abandon on Wednesday, as the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 3% to 18,983 and the small-cap Russell 2000 popped nearly 6%. The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 3.6%, or 1,508 points to 43,729, while the broader S&P 500 rose 2.5% to 5,929.

Amazon led U.S. stock indexes higher, while a surprisingly weak jobs report marred by some unusual occurrences cemented bets on Wall Street for another cut to interest rates next week.

A growing number of Wall Street strategists are predicting that a decision in the US presidential election will set the stage for stocks to rally into the end of 2024, building on a 21% gain this year for the S&P 500 Index.

Wall Street's main indexes rose on Tuesday as technology and chips stocks gained, while investors braced for volatile trading over the next few sessions as voting began in a tightly contested U.S. presidential election.