The New York Stock Exchange has traders on it.
Spencer Platt is a photographer.
The US stock market closed sharply lower Friday as investors moved out of risk assets after a new strain of coronaviruses caused worries that the global economy would be thrown off course.
Black Friday on Wall Street was ugly, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling by over 900 points. The trading ended at 1 p.m. Thursday's holiday was followed by an Eastern time.
US investors returned from Thanksgiving to see travel restrictions being put in place worldwide because of a variant of coronaviruses that appears to be spreading from South Africa. The World Health Organization held a special meeting on Friday to discuss the variant.
The US indexes were at 4:00 p.m. on Friday.
We know that this variant has a large number of changes. The WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, said in a live streamed update that the concern is that when you have so many mutations, it can have an impact on how the virus behaves.
Covid-19 is still the main investor narrative with outsized developments driving investor sentiment. Greg Bassuk, CEO at AXS Investments, told Insider in a note Friday that this sentiment is steering kitchen table conversations and ultimately, consumer buying.
Market moves have been sparked by a number of factors, including corporate earnings, economic data, and Fed policy. The emergence of the Delta variant and the latest South Africa variant have overshadowed other factors in the course of Covid containment.
Travel stocks slid, including United Air Lines and Carnival, after the European Union, the UK, Japan and other countries imposed travel restrictions from South Africa. The shares of vaccine makers and stay-at- home stock plays went up.
The price of gold fell to $1,787.89 per ounce. The yield on the 10-year bond fell 9 basis points.
West Texas Intermediate crude was off by more than 10%.
The price of the digital currency fell to $54,525.73.
Business Insider has an original article.
