Shares have fallen as a result of fears of a new variant of coronavirus, Reuters said

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK (Reuters) – US stocks fell on Friday as the Dow suffered its biggest one-day drop in months and the pandemic-affected sectors since the reopening fell sharply after a new coronavirus mutation was discovered.

Authorities around the world reacted with alarm to the coronavirus variant found in South Africa on Friday, while researchers in the European Union and Britain said they wanted to determine whether it was resistant to vaccines.

Cruise Operators Carnival (NYSE 🙂 Corp., Royal Caribbean (NYSE 🙂 Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Line (NYSE 🙂 each plunged more than 10%, and shares of United Airlines, Delta Air Lines (NYSE 🙂 and American Airlines (NASDAQ 🙂 also fell. The NYSE Arca Airline index fell 6.45% since September 2020, the biggest one-day percentage drop.

Retailers fell 2.04% when Black Friday began the holiday shopping season, with concerns that the new variant would reduce store traffic and reduce supply.

Sales were broad, with large declines of more than 1% in the 11 major S&P sectors except healthcare, which fell by only 0.45% thanks to the authors of COVID-19 vaccines. Pfizer Inc. (NYSE 🙂 rose 6.11% to close at a historic high of $ 54, and Modern (NASDAQ 🙂 Inc. jumped 20.57%.

“Deja vu is back for the eighth time,” said Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at Atlanta Global Investments.

“What we understand about this variant could be accelerated over the weekend. If it’s more worrying than good news, a lot of people don’t want to be risk-averse on Monday morning or are afraid of what might happen on Monday morning.”

Despite the sale, market participants indicated that the decline is likely due to excessive thin volume, thanks to the shortened holiday sessions.

905.04 points, or 2.53%, to 34,899.34; The S&P 500 lost 106.84 points, or 2.27% to 4,594.62; and fell by 353.57 points, or 2.23%, to 15,491.66.

The index of small domestic capital fell by 3.67%. Both the S&P 500 and the low-capital Russell index had their biggest one-day percentage drops since Feb. 25.

The S&P 500 bank index fell 3.87% as investors dashed expectations of a faster rise in U.S. interest rates. Energy, the highest-performing sector this year, fell 4% a day, the biggest drop in more than eight months, as crude oil prices fell by $ 10 a barrel.

High U.S. inflation, with strong economic data, and the appointment of U.S. President Joe Biden as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell boosted expectations that the central bank could raise interest rates sooner than expected.

The CBOE volatility index, known as a measure of Wall Street fear, reached its highest level since early March.

Shares like Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ :), Peloton Interactive (NASDAQ 🙂 and the like Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ :), known as “stay home,” made solid strides.

The declines were more than the NYSE forwards with a ratio of 5.84 to 1; On the Nasdaq, the 3.96 and 1 ratios favored declines.

The S&P 500 released seven new 52-week highs and 23 new lows; The Nasdaq Composite recorded 18 new highs and 334 new lows.