Tuesday, November 30th, 2021
New virus and inflation fears
Fed has Wall Street smeared again
Inflation is rising and with it the prospect that the US Federal Reserve will turn the interest rate screw earlier. Investors who had just recovered from worries about the Omikron variant are reacting with sales. A message from the Moderna boss also creates new uncertainty.
The recovery attempt on the US stock exchanges has come to an end for the time being. Investors continued to be plagued by concerns about the new Omikron coronavirus variant. In addition, statements made by US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell were annoying, because the Fed is apparently heading for a faster reduction in its securities purchases. Powell suggested that high inflation in the US might not be a passing phenomenon after all.
Of the Dow Jones Industrial ultimately fell by 1.86 percent to 34,483.72 points, adding one more to the mostly cloudy month of November. Overall, the minus for the US benchmark index in the penultimate month of the year is 3.7 percent. The previous annual balance sheet is still clearly positive at 12.7 percent. Another relief is likely to be that the 200-day line, which is currently slightly below 34,350 points and signals the longer-term trend in the Dow, has held up so far. The market breadth S&P 500 decreased by 1.90 percent to 4567.00 points. Of the Nasdaq 100 After a stable course at the beginning, it lost 1.61 percent to 16,135.92 points. He continues to record a monthly profit, which, however, shrank to 1.8 percent. The current annual plus is still around a quarter.
The Omikron variant also harbors high risks
However, concerns about the new Omikron variant continued to grow. The background was statements by Moderna boss Stephane Bancel, according to which existing corona vaccines are likely to be less effective against the virus variant and it could also take months before suitable vaccines were mass-produced. Biontech also recently announced that it should take 100 days from development to delivery. Lost in this context Moderna 4.1 percent and Biontech 3.1 percent. Regeneron lost 2.7 percent. The company has spoken of a lower effect of its antibody drug in the new Corona variant.
The US economic data did not provide a clear picture. While retail data was strong, sentiment among US consumers weakened in November. The previous month’s value was also revised downwards. And the mood of purchasing managers from the Chicago area also fell more sharply than expected in November.
According to Powell, the US bond market shows a mixed picture. While the returns on the ten and 30 year old papers recorded significant losses, put the return two year title vigorously to. Powell’s statements that it would consider scaling back bond purchases faster in December given the risk of higher inflation, further flattened the yield curve, it said. The spread between two- and 10-year government bond yields narrowed to a level not seen since January.
Airline stocks and oil plummeting
Of the Gold price came under pressure with the rising dollar. Previously, the precious metal had benefited from investors’ search for security. the Oil prices came under pressure with concerns about possible negative economic effects from the new Corona variant and thus also falling demand and lost up to 4.8 percent. Participants also referred to the rising dollar. “The market will wait in the next few weeks until there is a clearer picture of how bad lockdowns and travel restrictions are with the new variant,” said Oanda analyst Edward Moya.
Shares were sold in companies that would be particularly affected by the looming increased lockdowns. These included airlines and companies from the travel and leisure industry.