Wall Street in sharp decline, with the trend in line with that of global equities. The Dow Jones marks a drop of nearly 600 points (-1.64%), at 34,784 points; the S&P 500 slipped 1.29% to 4,561 points, while the Nasdaq fell 1.35% to 14,964 points.
The fear of new lockdowns in the world prevails due to the rapid spread of Omicron; also highlighted the thud in oil prices up to almost -5%, triggered precisely by the fear of further measures of restrictions against the new variant of Covid-19.
Particularly under pressure are the stocks of companies whose business is linked to the reopening of economies, now threatened again by the pandemic. Shares of airlines such as United Airlines and Southwest sell off, as well as those of cruise travel operators, such as Royal Caribbean, which dropped by around 4%.
Bad restaurant titles, such as Darden Restaurants. Also down were the stocks of the energy, banking, industrial and retail sectors.
The stock of vaccine maker Moderna instead rises by 5% after the company announced that its vaccine booster provides significant protection against Omicron. Novavax also did very well, leaping up to about + 10% after the EMA, the European agency for the control of medicines, issued the authorization to use its anti-Covid vaccine.
Known as Nuvaxovid, it is the fifth Covid-19 vaccine to be approved for use in the European Union, in addition to those produced by Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca-Oxford, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson. The company also said it is “considering its own Omicron vaccine,” and is working to distribute a specific version against the variant.
However, 10-year Treasury rates discount fears of further economic slowdowns, hovering below the 1.40% threshold, at 1.382%. The US stock exchange also pays for internal political tensions.
The decision by US Democratic Senator Joe Manchin not to support the $ 1,750 billion infrastructure plan wanted by US President Joe Biden prompted, among other things, analysts at Goldman Sachs to revise US GDP estimates downwards.
“Failing to exceed the Build Back Better (BBB) has negative implications for growth,” says the US bank, which now expects GDP to grow at an annualized rate of 2% in the first quarter compared to 3% previously.
The Senate is divided in half (50 and 50) between Democrats and Republicans and therefore without Manchin’s vote the plan cannot pass.
Wall Street is back from a bad week, in which the S&P 500 lost 1.9% and the Nasdaq Composite lost nearly 3%. The Dow Jones was also bad, down by 1.7%.
However, the trend of the S&P 500 in December remains positive, up by 1.2% since the beginning of the month, a factor that brings the 2021 gains of the benchmark index to + 23%. The Nasdaq was down 2.4% in December, while the Dow Jones gained 2.6% on a monthly basis.
Oil prices plummet, with the WTI contract plummeting 4.69% to $ 67.54 a barrel, and the Brent contract retreating 4% to $ 70.55.