Stocks Rebound Sharply After Friday’s Omicron Fuelled Sell-Off
3:03 pm Monday, November 29th, 2021
Wall Street stocks rose early Monday, recovering some of last week’s losses as investors adopted a more hopeful view on the latest Covid-19 variant.
The first half of today’s session has seen a strong rebound from Friday’s plunge that was owed to fears about reports of a new coronavirus variant. The fears have not gone away entirely, but the recognition that it is yet unknown if the omicron variant will be more dangerous or more transmissible has opened the door to a partial recovery of Friday’s losses.
Drugmakers Pfizer (PFE) and Moderna (MRNA) indicated that they can modify their vaccine formulations quickly if necessary. Moderna remains near its session high while Pfizer has surrendered its early gain and now trades in the red.
All eleven sectors display midday gains with seven groups up 1.0% or more. Technology (+2.6%) and consumer discretionary (+2.2%) hold the lead while financials (+0.6%) and consumer staples (+0.8%) sit at the bottom of today’s leaderboard.
The technology sector has benefited from broad strength as top components like Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) advance alongside chipmakers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index is up 3.3%, extending its November gain to 12.5%. Also of note, Twitter (TWTR) jumped out of the gate after CEO Dorsey announced that he will leave his post, but the stock now trades lower after a steady slide from its opening mark.
Travel and hospitality stocks like Expedia (EXPE), Marriott (MAR), and Royal Caribbean (RCL) have contributed to the strength in the discretionary sector while Tesla (TSLA) is also offering strong support. Retailers trade mostly higher, though the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 97.64, +0.46, +0.5%) has backtracked from its opening high.
Crude oil has bounced back above its 200-day moving average (69.76), but it trades below its session high, showing a gain of $3.00, or 4.4%, at $71.15/bbl.
Treasuries hit lows in early trade before rising off those levels. The 10-yr yield is currently up five basis points at 1.53% after reaching 1.57% during the opening hour.
Today’s economic data was limited to the Pending Home Sales report for October, which showed a 7.5% increase (Briefing.com consensus 0.7%) while the September decrease was revised down to 2.4% from -2.3%.
