The S&P took a U-turn on Tuesday by experiencing a rough trading session in the red after the index took a four-day high climb like never before. U.S. stocks got mixed and experienced seesaw movements from the three key indexes in the intraday trading because investors have seen innumerable rises in the COVID 19 cases. But the S&P took the reverse action after the midday trading session after hitting a high in the first half of the intraday session. The Dow extended its winning streak to five days. The Nasdaq fell, pulled down by ongoing tech stock sales.
There has been a huge rise in the global COVID 19 cases reach over 1.44 million across the world as per the report published by Bloomberg. The infections are rising as a result of the Omicron variant which is the highest transmissible variant so far.
According to experts, the recent rise in infections is due to Omicron, which spreads 70 times faster as compared to the previous variants – Although studies show that sickness caused by the strain is less likely to be severe or lead to hospitalizations, it made up a large portion of the newly monitored cases.
The CDC has also made relaxations in its rules in quarantine after being exposed to the virus by halving its suggestions to get isolated after being tested positive from 10 to 5 days.
December was an extremely volatile month for investors due to the negative impact of the pandemic on the economy. However, recent studies that suggest Omicron may induce a lesser kind of sickness have helped to calm markets.
Surprisingly, bad news about Omicron might be helpful for the markets since it encourages the Fed to maintain its ultra-loose monetary policies. For the third month in a row, home price growth in the United States slowed on Tuesday, while it continued to climb overall. In October, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national house price index increased 19.1% year over year, down from 19.7% in September. The 20-City Composite increased by 18.4% year over year, down from 19.1% a month ago.
On the other hand, brent crude oil has reached $76 per barrel after surging from $79 per barrel on Monday. Philip Streible stated that the surge in oil prices is just the beginning, and the market will be witnessing more growth in 2022.
With low trading volumes and a sparse schedule of economic data and earnings reports, the remainder of the week is anticipated to be relatively calm for investors. The coming weeks will be volatile for investors with the increase in volume.
As the market moves into 2022, there are several key factors to consider, like growing inflationary pressures, as well as any responses the Federal Reserve could take.
