The Ibex and Europe point to sharp falls due to doubts about the vaccine and Ómicron

After the respite of this Monday, when the European and American stock markets rebounded after the hit on Friday, today Tuesday it seems that the strong falls return indexes while fear persists for the South African variant of Covid, Ómicron. European futures come with cuts of more than 2%, while the Americans fall 1%.

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The decreases are motivated by the latest statements by the CEO of Moderna, Stephane Bancel, who has said in the ‘Financial Times’ that hopes that existing vaccines are less effective against the new variant. This Monday, Bancel declared on ‘CNBC’ that it could take months to develop a specific vaccine against Omicron.

The declines again extend to oil, which plunged more than 10% last Friday and at this time more than 3% is left. There is fear that demand will weaken due to the slowdown in activity due to this new variant of Covid. We recall that this Thursday OPEC + is meeting to see what it does with production in the midst of all this situation.

In Asia, for its part, the falls have also been imposed this morning, with especially sharp declines in the Hong Kong stock market. In the chapter on macro data, the references published this Tuesday showed that the activity of Chinese factories grew unexpectedly in november, with the official Chinese purchasing managers index for November, which stood at 50.1. This figure beat analysts’ expectations, who had expected a reading of 49.6.

“Looking ahead to the rest of the week, the fall in markets this morning shows that sentiment is going to remain extremely fickle until we have a clearer idea of ​​what is coming in relation to the new variant“anticipates Michael Hewson, CMC Markets chief analyst, in his daily report.

“As a consequence of these latest events, markets are also lowering expectations about when central banks could accelerate any normalization measure. In recent days, expectations had risen that the Federal Reserve could accelerate the pace of its stimulus reduction program when it meets in mid-December. Now it seems this is at stake, and markets are pending today’s testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell to US lawmakers to get clues about central banks’ views on the likelihood of this happening, “adds Hewson.

Powell appears Tuesday before the Senate banking committee. For the rest, the agenda includes the preliminary euro area CPI for November as the most relevant data. Germany’s unemployment for November will also be released.

INDITEX, LEADING

Inditex is the protagonist this Tuesday after announcing that Marta Ortega it will be new president from April next year, replacing Pablo Isla and in what is the culmination of the general change process begun in 2011, which leads the daughter of the owner of the textile, Amancio Ortega, to occupy the highest position at the head of the company.

A hard tackle from Óscar García Maceiras becomes the CEO of the company with immediate effect.

We recall that Inditex publishes results on December 15.

OTHER MARKETS

The euro is trading at $ 1.1307 (+ 0.14%). Gold and silver rose moderately to $ 1,794 and $ 22.87, respectively.

Bitcoin is down 3.18% ($ 56,271) and Ethereum is down 0.6% ($ 4,390).

The yield on the 10-year American bond stands at 1.471%.

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