New York (CNN Business) Wall Street likes divided government, and investors got just what they were hoping for.

Stocks moved sharply higher Wednesday following midterm election results that gave Democrats control of the House but increased Republicans' control over the Senate.

The Dow soared nearly 550 points, a gain of 2.1%. The S&P 500 was also up 2.1% and the Nasdaq surged 2.6%. Stocks hit their highs of the day after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he was resigning at the request of President Donald Trump.

Split control of government has traditionally been good for stocks, said David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore.

"We shouldn't automatically assume the economy is going to go south just because the houses are controlled by different parties," he said. "When you have houses controlled by different parties they actually have to compromise a bit if they're going to get anything done, and this tends to sometimes be positive."