Just as Wall Street sat down to give thanks for a year that has seen one of the fastest profit recoveries in history, traders got a jolt as the new variant worry infected booming stock markets and made everything from stocks, crude to crypto collapse.
The 30-stock Dow Index collapsed 1000 points intraday to end 900 points lower, S&P 500 posted its biggest slide since February dropping over 2%. Asian markets had already seen the bloodbath with Sensex, Nifty down 8% from record high after the worst day since the second wave hit.
It was not just stocks , crude oil posted its worst day of the year on Friday, tumbling to the lowest level in more than two months as it broke below $70/bbl. It was the contract’s worst day since April 2020. Infact down for the fifth-week oil is having its worst run since March 2020, when the pandemic started
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Crypto is not far behind in the collapse. Bitcoin fell sharply alongside other assets on Friday, hitting a seven-week low and officially entering bear market territory as it dropped 20% from its record high.
The downward moves came after World Health Organization officials on Thursday warned of a new Covid-19 variant that’s been detected in South Africa. The WHO has now named the variant Omicorn, has assigned it as a variant of concern. The highly mutating variant has countries on alert with US, UK to Singapore re-imposing restrictions on air travel from pockets of the world.
Asia markets were hit hard in Friday trade, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index both falling more than 2%. Germany’s Dax index slid more than 4% and Indian markets as well now down over 8% from record high as they saw the biggest single day slide since April.