London, Monday, 20 December 2021
Prolonged concerns of the Omicron variant on economy and growth prospects, along with last week’s augmented worries around tighter monetary policy by the Fed, sent US stocks lower on Monday, with all major indexes in decline.
Meanwhile in Europe, worries around the Omicron variant prevailed over any other data, sending all indexes in the red.
In Germany, the Head of German Hospital Federation, Gerald Gass, said that the fast increase of Omicron cases, is threatening to crush the (already) overloaded hospitals, while in the Netherlands the government announced more measures which include a 10-day mandatory quarantine for passengers travelling from the UK. The government applied similar measures for visitors from other EU and Schengen countries.
Finally, in the UK, 12,133 additional cases of Omicron were reported on Sunday in just 24 hours, rising the cases to a total of 37,101 so far, the UK Health Security Agency reported.
U.S. Stock Market Indexes
S&P 500: -52.61 (-1.14%) to 4,568.03
Nasdaq: -188.74 (-1.24%) to 14,980.94
Dow Jones: -433.28 (-1.23%) to 34,932.16
European Stock Market Indexes
STOXX Europe 600: -6.55 points, or 1.38%, to 467.35
FTSE 100 in London: -71 points, or 0.99%, to end the day at 7,198
DAX 30 in Germany: the worst performer of the day, -292 points, or 1.88%, to close at 15,239
CAC 40 in France: -56 points, or 0.82%, to 6,870
FTSE MIB 30 in Italy: -433 points, or 1.63%, to end the day at 26,177
IBEX 35 in Spain: -69 points, or 0.83%, to finish at 8,242
Other markets
Ten-year U.S. Treasury note: +1.7 bps to yield 1.4190%
Dollar index: -0.08 or -0.08% at 96.48 as of Dec 20, 2021 at 5:04 p.m. EST
VIX volatility index: +1.30 (6.03%) at 22.87 as of Dec 20, 3:15 PM CST
Oil prices
Brent crude: +0.49 0.69% at $72.01 as of Dec 20, 2021 10:05 p.m. GMT
West Texas Intermediate: -2.20 or -3.10% at $68.66Dec 20, 2021 2:29 p.m. EST
Precious metals
Gold: -9.99 or -0.55% at $1,790.53 an ounce
Silver: -0.11 or -0.48% at $22.26 an ounce
Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin: +168.20 (0.36%) at $46,858.70 as of Dec 20, 10:29 PM UTC
Etherum: −28.15 (0.72%) at $3,897.63 as of Dec 20, 10:29 PM UTC
(Written and edited by: The Decision Maker)
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