The stock market's volatility is at its highest since the beginning of the year as investors weigh up the impact of the Omicron variant.
The images are by Anton Petrus.
The US detected its first case of the Omicron variant on Thursday, and the oil price rebounded from three-month lows ahead of a key meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
The CDC said an adult in San Francisco had tested positive for the variant after returning from South Africa.
At least 23 countries have reported cases of Omicron, and the World Health Organization expects that number to grow.
Financial markets were scared by the news Wednesday. On Thursday, it hurt shares across Europe, but left US and Asian equity market sentiment unaffected.
The S&P 500 futures were up 0.6%, the Dow Jones futures were up 0.7%, and the Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.4%. When the US case of Omicron surfaced, the three benchmarks closed down.
"Yesterday's market reaction gives a flavour of how fragile sentiment is, despite the various reassurances from the likes of the WHO, as well as many of the vaccine companies, including BioNTech and Oxford University who came up with the AstraZeneca jab," said Michael He, a strategist with
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was down 1.2%. The index rose in Asia.
Ahead of Thursday's meeting of OPEC and its partners to discuss supply policy, crude oil rallied. The recent drop in the crude price to three-month lows and the unknown impact to demand from the Omicron variant are making it difficult to know what the group of major oil producers will decide.
The most likely outcome is another 400k barrels per day increase in production, but the potential for a significant shift in demand if Omicron sparks new lockdowns does alter the state of play significantly, according to strategists at broker IG.
The price of crude was up 1.3% at $68 a barrel. The price of crude was up 1.5% at $66.50 a barrel. The contracts lost around 17% in November, their biggest one-month drop since April last year.
US gasoline futures have gained 42% so far this year, which has added to politicians' and central bankers' concerns about more entrenched inflation.
Powell has maintained that the high rate of increase in consumer prices would be temporary. With a labor shortage pushing up wages, and the cost of goods from food to second-hand cars rising, Powell has changed his tone.
He said the Fed's policy-makers would discuss speeding up the winding-down of its bond purchases, a step investors think will precede a rate hike. The markets are pricing in at least two rate rises in the year 2022, starting in June.
This raises an interesting point. How will other G10 central banks react to the Fed's desire to speed up the policy normalization process? Michael Brown is a strategist at Caxton.
They will either act as sheep and follow suit, or they will stick to the status quo, which will pose a headwind to risky assets.
Business Insider has an original article.
