Shares are recovering some losses after the Dow’s worst day since October 2020
Shares jumped Monday morning to recover some losses after Friday’s crash, as uncertainty surrounding a new variant of the coronavirus increased volatility across global markets.
The Dow scored more than 300 points, or about 0.9%. On Friday, the index had its worst day since October 2020, falling more than 900 points, or 2.5%.
U.S. airlines and other travel stocks were generally higher to steady after heavy losses from the end of last week, when initial concerns about the newly discovered Omicron variant of the coronavirus in South Africa led to fears of renewed global restrictions. Meanwhile, Zoom Video Communications (ZM), Peloton (PTON) and other stocks that have been the mainstays of the “stay-at-home”[ads1]; trade returned some of Friday’s gains. However, technology stocks that had become defensive games during the pandemic largely held up on Monday, and Nasdaq futures yielded better results.
“Ultimately, this is not the first or last variant scare, and our technical playbook over the last 18 months has been to use these macro / risk events as buying opportunities to own the technology sector specifically cloud, cybersecurity and 5G winners. , “Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note Monday morning. “While we see a return to normality, a semi-distant work environment we believe is here to stay, which underlines our technological shooting into 2022 that the digital transformation development will be accelerated and is not a one-time COVID pull forward event.”
The US and the EU have been among a number of destinations to ban flights from several African countries after the new variant was discovered. However, cases of the variant, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has so far identified as a “variant of concern”, have also been detected in regions including the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Australia, Germany and Italy, among others. Japan, Israel and Morocco announced in recent days that they would block foreign visitors from visiting in the middle of the spread of the latest variant.
While much has not yet been confirmed about the Omicron variant – including whether it is more contagious or causes more serious disease than previous variants – vaccine manufacturers have already said they are working to adapt their existing inoculations to the new strain. Modern (MRNA). Chief Medical Officer Paul Burton told the BBC on Sunday that a new vaccine to treat Omicron may be widely available in early 2022. Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BNTX) said last week that they expected to have data on the latest variant within two weeks. and it can take about 100 days to make a vaccine specially tailored for a new variant. The WHO has said that preliminary evidence of Omicron indicated “an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, compared to other [variants of concern]. ”
Many market experts have argued that it is still too early to say how Omicron will behave from an epidemiological point of view and how it will affect economic activity, if closures or on-site behavior are extended.
“What should we look for? A strong leading indicator will be what happens to hospitalizations and deaths in South Africa, where this has become dominant. If there is a noticeable increase, then it has consequences for other places,” Henry Allen, Deustche Bank Analysts, wrote in a note.
“Nevertheless, there are two important differences worth remembering between South Africa and much of the work done: First, Europe and the United States have much higher vaccination rates, which (provided the vaccine is not ineffective) can provide greater protection.” he added, noting that South Africa has fully vaccinated 24% of the population compared to 58% in the United States and 69% in France. “This suggests that they may have advantages over South Africa. But secondly, Europe and the United States have much older populations, and age is a factor that is strongly correlated with the likelihood of hospitalization and death. In South Africa, the median age is in the country is 28, much lower than the median age of Western Europe at 44. ”
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09:35 ET: Parts of Twitter jump after CNBC announces that Dorsey will resign
CNBC reported on Monday that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was expected to resign from his role as head of the social media platform.
Shares on Twitter rose by more than 11% immediately after the report, which quoted unnamed people familiar with the case. Dorsey serves as CEO of both Twitter and the financial technology platform Square, which is also listed on the stock exchange.
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09:31 ET: Stocks open higher, Dow gets 350+ points
Here is where the markets traded just after opening time:
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S&P 500 (^ GSPC): +56.62 (+ 1.23%) to 4651.24
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Dow (^ DJI): +352.24 (+ 1.01%) to 35 251.58
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Nasdaq (^ IXIC): +231.13 (+ 1.49%) to 15 721.53
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Rough (CL = F): + $ 4.55 (+ 6.68%) to $ 72.70 per barrel
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Gold (GC = F): – $ 0.70 (-0.04%) to $ 1787.40 per ounce
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10-year Treasury (^ TNX): +7.7 bps to give 1.562%
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08:45 ET: Vaccine manufacturers’ shares rise while companies work on shots to address Omicron
Shares of major covid-19 vaccine manufacturers including Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna rose Monday morning after executives from those companies said they were working on inoculations that would directly address the new Omicron version of the virus.
BioNTech US SDRs increased by more than 5.5% in pre-market trading. The Pfizer share rose 1.7%, while the Moderna share gave a better result with a jump of more than 10% in the early session.
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07:45 ET Monday: Stock futures recover some losses
Here were the main features of the markets ahead of the opening clock
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S&P 500 futures (ES = F): +31.75 points (+ 0.69%), to 4,627.50
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Dow futures (ÅM = F): +180 points (+ 0.52%), to 35,038.00
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Nasdaq futures (NQ = F): +132 points (+ 0.82%) to 16,183.00
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Rough (CL = F): + $ 3.33 (+ 4.89%) to $ 71.48 per barrel
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Gold (GC = F): + $ 5.20 (+ 0.29%) to $ 1793.30 per ounce
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10-year Treasury (^ TNX): +6.2 bps to give 1.547%
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Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter
