Investors shift to safe assets as BoJ leaves policy unchanged, US election nears

Stocks mostly fell on Tuesday.

The S&P 500 fell 0.7 percent and the STOXX Europe 600 fell 1.1 percent.

The Nikkei 225 edged up 0.1 percent though after the Bank of Japan left its monetary policy unchanged.

Safe haven assets rose. The yield on the US 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.822 percent from 1.834 percent on Monday. Gold rose 1.2 percent.

“As we move closer to the election, people start getting more and more jittery,” said Mohit Bajaj, director of exchange-traded fund trading solutions at WallachBeth Capital.

Indeed, CNBC reports that during presidential election years, the S&P 500 rises 56 percent of the time in November for an overall average gain of about half a percent. In non-presidential election years, the S&P 500 rises three-fourths of the time for an average gain of 1.7 percent.