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Financial stocks took center stage this week as investors digested a wave of third-quarter earnings from major sector leaders.

The Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLF) continues to lag the broader market, posting a 4.57% year-to-date gain against a

Stock index futures were mixed on Thursday, a day after Wall Street rallied following major Democratic victories in the U.S. midterm elections.

Dow futures (INDU) +0.49%, S&P 500 futures (SPX) -0.07%, and Nasdaq futures (US100:IND) -0.94%.

Wall Street’s major averages

Colin Allred is all blue. The Democratic politician from Texas played linebacker for the powder blue-clad Tennessee Titans for four years and he rode the historic blue wave Tuesday to return to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Allred, who served three consecutive terms in Congress before making an unsuccessful bid for the Senate in 2024, is one of several prominent former athletes who ran for office in the midterm elections. He won this time in a landslide over Republican Patrick Gillespie, collecting nearly 80% of the votes in the 33rd Congressional District located in Dallas County.

In an Substack essay in August, Allred enumerated lessons learned playing in the NFL, calling them “the core values I’m bringing with me in my fight for Congress”: Staying humble, recognizing that leadership comes from bringing people together despite their differences and building strong relationships, trust and teamwork.

Joining Allred in Congress — albeit from the other side of the aisle — will be another former professional athlete who ran a successful campaign in Texas: Former Angels slugger Mark Teixeira, a Republican who will succeed Chip Roy.

Teixeira was the fifth overall pick in the 2001 MLB draft by the Texas Rangers, for whom he played until 2007. After brief stints with the Atlanta Braves and Angels, he spent nine seasons with the New York Yankees, helping them to a World Series title in 2009 and finishing second in MVP voting.

After retiring in 2016 with 409 career home runs, Teixeira returned to Texas and announced his candidacy for the 21st Congressional District a year ago. An avowed conservative, he said he was “ready to help defend President Trump’s America First agenda, Texas families, and individual liberty.” Trump endorsed Teixeira and he defeated 11 candidates in the Republican primary.

Historically, former athletes running for office lean Republican. Decades after helping Michigan to national championships in 1932 and 1933, the outstanding center and linebacker Gerald Ford became the 38th president of the United States on the Republican ticket.

Ford never played professionally, but several men who did have served in Congress: Rep. Jack Kemp (R-NY), Rep. Steve Largent (R-OK) and Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) played in the NFL; Sen. and Rep. Jim Bunning (R-KY) was a Hall of Fame MLB pitcher; and Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ) was a Hall of Fame NBA forward.

Dave Bing and Kevin Johnson became the Democratic mayors of Detroit and Sacramento, respectively. And if the net is widened to include powerlifting and pro wrestling, Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Jesse Ventura of Minnesota get a nod.

Tommy Tuberville, a former longtime college football coach and Republican senator since 2021, won the governor’s race in Alabama on Tuesday, defeating Democrat former Sen. Doug Jones. Tuberville posted a record of 159-99 over 21 seasons at Auburn, Cincinnati, Texas Tech and Mississippi.

Two former NFL players and a veteran NFL broadcaster appear to have fallen short in their attempts to win political office.

Republican Jay Feely, an NFL kicker for six teams over 14 seasons, trails Democrat Amish Shah, a former team physician for the New York Jets, 52.6% to 45.4% with 85% of the vote tallied in a race for the U.S. Congress in Arizona. Democrat Chris Kluwe, a Minnesota Vikings punter from 2005-2012, lost a close race to Republican Gracey Van Der Mark to represent California Assembly District 72, which mainly consists of Orange County beach communities.

And Republican Michele Tafoya lost the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota to Democrat Peggy Flanagan, the state’s lieutenant governor. Tafoya was a sideline reporter for NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” and also worked as a broadcaster for CBS and ABC.

Perhaps the most impressive showing by a former athlete was that of Iowa Democrat Josh Turek, who flipped a seat for the U.S. Senate by defeating Republican Congresswoman and former TV anchor Ashley Hinson. Born with spina bifida and confined to a wheelchair after his father was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam, Turek is a four-time Paralympian and two-time gold medalist in wheelchair basketball.

Alexander Volkanovski secured a total knockout in the closing seconds of second round at UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi.

Australia’s Alexander Volkanovski has retained his featherweight title after making short work of Russia’s Movsar Evloev in the UFC 333 main event in Abu Dhabi.

Volkanovski secured a technical knockout (TKO) with a right hand, followed by a ground-and-pound move in the closing seconds of the second round of their scheduled five-round fight on Saturday.

The official time was 4:54, as the fight was called off with six seconds left to the jubilation of the Etihad Arena crowd in the United Arab Emirates capital.

It was Evloev’s first professional loss and he remained classy in defeat.

“Like I said, Alex is a great champion and it was an honour to share the cage with him,” Evloev said after the loss.

Meanwhile, Volkanovski said he wants to keep stacking wins for as long as he can.

“I’m choosing to do [fight], I don’t have to. I said if I didn’t take too much damage, we will probably keep going. So maybe we keep going,” Volkanovski said.

In the co-main event, Petr Yan won his three-fight series against Merab Dvalishvili in a Russia vs Georgia showdown as Yan swept the scorecards 48-47, 48-47, 48-47 with a mix of a gruelling pace, wrestling, dirty boxing and keeping Dvalishvili at distance to defend his UFC bantamweight title.

Yan beat Dvalishvili last December to regain the title for the second time, having previously won it in July 2020 against Jose Aldo at UFC 251.

The finishes kept coming, but this time in the flyweight division. England’s Lone’er Kavanagh secured a TKO stoppage against Uzbekistan’s Ramazan Temirov with an uppercut, followed by strikes, at 4:28 of Round 1.

At heavyweight, Russia’s Alexander Volkov won a unanimous decision over Rizvan Kuniev utilising dominant wrestling and top control to earn his third-straight win. Volkov called for a title shot at Thursday’s presser, which may have stumped UFC CEO Dana White when addressing him.

Kuniev had his two-fight winning streak snapped.

Opening the main card, Aaron Pico needed just over a minute to TKO Losene Keita of Guinea in their featherweight fight. Pico has won back-to-back fights, while Keita has split his last four.

Gains and losses were shaped by quarterly earnings, technical momentum (for CSGP), sector-specific news such as SpaceX’s interest in cell sites (boosting CCI), and factors like changes in investment guidance (pressuring BNL) or reduced revenue from amortization (impacting CCI).