Equity markets advanced about 0.5% in mixed trading on Tuesday as traders await the results of the midterm elections. The polls were mixed at midnight so it could be anybody's game with the final vote tallied. The real driver of action, however, was a rise in the energy sector that put the Energy Sector ETF XLE at the highest levels in about 8 years. The move suggests a bullish tone to the energy market which has been reporting windfall profits and announcing dividend increases and share repurchases.

The risk this week is in the CPI index which is due out tomorrow. The analysts have been shifting their estimates and the net result is an increased expectation for consumer-level inflation versus earlier in the week. As it is now, economists are expecting core consumer inflation to run flat at 6.6% YOY which is a record-setting level of inflation. The takeaway is the FOMC is not done with interest rate hikes and they could maintain their 75 bps pace into the end of the year or longer.