Wall Street traders watched with bated breath Tuesday night as the United States underwent one of the biggest political upsets in its history.
They spent the ensuing hours trying to puzzle together how Donald Trump's often-erratic campaign tactics and video 18 yr stranger sexpolicy pronouncements might shape the markets.
SEE ALSO: Mixed reaction after Trump is elected U.S. presidentAs for the U.S. stock market as a whole, Wall Street seemed to be feeling optimistic Wednesday afternoon despite an initial plunge in global indices caused by news of Trump's impending victory the previous night. The Dow Jones Industrial average closed at 250 points Wednesday afternoon, its highest finish since August.
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While public stocks are volatile by nature, and changes in share price can sometimes be attributable to a number of factors, below are the businesses whose shares appeared to ride on the prospect of a Trump White House.
Private prisons↗
CXW Price data by YCharts
Private prison stocks soared on the news of a Trump victory on Wednesday.
Industry shares had cratered in August when the Justice Department said it would stop using these types of penitentiaries and encouraged other public agencies to do the same out of concern for inmate safety.
Hillary Clinton had also planned to uphold the policy.
But Trump, who made cracking down on crime a centerpiece of his campaign, has vowed to continue with these contracts.
"I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons," he told MSNBC's Chris Matthews in March. "It seems to work a lot better."
Shares of Corrections Corps of America, shown in the chart above, flew up more than 47 percent over the course of the day.
Corona ↘
STZ.B Price data by YCharts
Shares of Constellation Brands, the parent conglomerate of Mexican beer brand Corona, dropped around nine percent throughout the day.
Investors seemed to be rattled by Trump's constant attacks on companies that import Mexican-made goods into the United States. Corona pulls in a big chunk of its sales from American beer drinkers.
Furthermore, an analyst research note warned in September that Mexican beer importers might be particularly vulnerable to a Trump administration since many of their target American consumers could face deportations or stricter immigration rules.
Constellation CEO Rob Sands sought to reassure shareholders at a meeting on Wednesday as the stock price sank.
“I don’t expect [the election] to affect our business in the short term and as these policies develop, we will respond accordingly and engage with government accordingly,” he said, according to Fortune.
Healthcare ↗
PFE Price data by YCharts
Drug and healthcare companies breathed a collective sigh of relief over Trump's victory -- but the sentiment had much more to do with his opponent's dashed hopes.
Clinton's vows to better regulate drug pricing had been weighing down the pharmaceutical industry's stocks for more than a year.
While Trump has similarly talked of cheaper drug imports and more closely monitoring price hikes, he touched on the issue much less frequently on the campaign trail. The drug industry apparently sees him as a lesser of two evils in this regard.
But there are also worries that his promise to repeal Obamacare could lead to business disruptions down the line.
Pfizer shares, tracked in the chart above, were up around seven percent at close.
Guns ↘
SWHC Price data by YCharts
You might think that Trump's pledge to expand gun ownership protection would be a good thing for firearm company stocks, but people tend to buy guns most when they feel like their right to have them is about to be threatened.
Thus, investors had previously expected presidential favorite Clinton's promised gun control measures to lead to a surge in sales, and when Trump won, the stocks dipped accordingly.
Shares of Smith & Wesson, seen in the chart above, fell around 4.4 percent on Wednesday.
Nabisco ↘
MDLZ data by YCharts
Snack maker Nabisco, a frequent campaign-trail target of Trump's, saw shares of parent Mondelez International drop more than four percent on Wednesday.
The cookie company became one of Trump's go-to punching bags for the ills of free trade as it gradually downsized its Chicago plant and expanded operations in Mexico throughout the span of the election cycle.
Trump frequently boasted that he had stopped eating Oreos, a Nabisco product, and even made the claim the butt of a joke seemingly aimed at campaign surrogate Chris Christie's weight.
But in his more straight-faced criticisms of the company, he has laid out plans to pursue legislation requiring the company to repay tax benefits it received for offshore workers.
Amazon ↘
AMZN Price data by YCharts
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant traded slightly down -- around two percent -- in the wake of Trump's victory on Wednesday.
Donald Trump has retaliated against negative coverage in the Washington Postby accusing its owner, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, of using the paper "for political purposes to save Amazon in terms of taxes and in terms of antitrust."
Bezos once also poked fun at the then-GOP-primary candidate on Twitter in response to one of Trump's infamous insult flurries.