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Day of “Black Friday” was and “Black Friday” was yesterday for all major financial markets, possibly the worst ever. Covid-19 has once again brought down the price lists of most of the planet. Better the announcement of the new South African Covid variant – considered much more contagious than the Delta variant – and which for the moment has been informally renamed “Nu”. And the fears of new restrictions, closures or even lockdowns that would produce a strong slowdown to the recovery, immediately triggered panic among investors. “The key now is to find out if the current vaccines remain effective against the variants or not” explains Emmanuel Cau, head of European equity strategy at Barclays, “the uncertainty of Covid could force central banks to err on the side of caution” adds. ‘analyst. And in line with the other European and Asian markets that had closed down sharply, yesterday Piazza Affari left 4.6% on the ground, settling at 25,852 points with banking and energy-related stocks at the bottom of the list.
Among the other asset classes, oil lost more than 10%, cryptocurrencies too badly (Bitcoin, after declines of more than 20%, closed with a decline of about 8%), while “safe haven” currencies read yen and Swiss franc. Strong volatility obviously also in the main squares of the Old Continent with Madrid black jersey which lost 5.08%, closely followed by Paris (-4.64%) and Frankfurt (-4.1%). The fall of the London FTSE 100 was more contained, which moved back “only” by 3.64%. The Stoxx 600 index, the one that groups together the main listed stocks, left 3.7% on the ground, a decline that is equivalent to about 390 billion of capitalization “burned” in a single session.
Among the individual stocks on Piazza Affari, the banking sector was the most harassed, among the sectors most exposed, together with energy and industry, to the risk of yet another abrupt stop in economic activity. Unicredit lost -6.9%, while Intesa Sanpaolo suffered a drop of 5.75 percent. Among the energy stocks, the worst was Tenaris (-7%) followed by Eni (-6.23%). In the industrial field, CNH sold 6.92%, while Stellantis sold 6.84% at € 15.56. The legality titles to mobility, travel and the fashion and luxury sector are also very bad since just yesterday, Black Friday officially kicked off the rush to Christmas shopping.
The only actions that have moved against the trend are the pharmaceutical ones that have been purchased precisely for the resumption of the global health emergency. Overseas too – it could not have been otherwise – the “short” session closed in deep red with the Dow Jones which closed the session down by 2.53% and the Nasdaq by 2.23%. For Wall Street, it was the worst Black Friday since 1950, which is over 70 years.
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