Shares on Wall Street posted modest gains on Wed, rising for a third straight
session. Investors are becoming increasingly convinced that the omicron variant
will be significantly less threatening as previously feared.
The S&P 500 index rose 0.31%, and now sits just 0.9% from an all-time record
high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 35.32 pts, or 0.1%, to close at
35,754.75. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.6%. The small cap
Russell 2000 edged higher by 0.8%.
US Treasury yields continue to track the stock market. The 10-year Treasury
note yield notched up 4.79 basis points (bps) to 1.5212%.
Apple (AAPL US, +2.28%) rose after it won a delay to court-mandated changes
to its App Store by Thur as it appeals the ruling. Apple is nearing a U$3T market
cap.
US cruise liners were among the top gainers after Pfizer (PFE US, -0.62%) and
BioNTech (BNTX US, -3.55%) said initial lab studies show a third dose of their
Covid-19 vaccine neutralizes the omicron variant. Shares of Norwegian Cruise
Line (NCLH US, +8.2%), Carnival (CCL US, +5.51%) and Royal Caribbean
(RCL US, +5.21%) rose.
The most actively traded US gold futures (Feb) contract settled up $0.80, or
0.04%, at US$1,785.50/oz. March silver, which is the most actively traded silver
futures, fell 9.1 cents, or 0.4%, to end at US$22.432/oz.
The ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback
against a basket of currencies, fell 0.49% to 95.894.
The front-month Brent and WTI futures closed up 38 cents at US$75.82/bbl and
31 cents at US$72.36/bbl respectively.
European equity markets finished lower on Wed, amid concerns that new Covid-
19 restrictions will hurt growth. The UK FTSE lost 0.04%, France's CAC 40 fell
0.72%, while the German DAX retreated 0.8%.