Worries about the fast-spreading omicron variant sent shares on Wall Street lower on Mon. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 433.28 pts or 1.23%, to close at 34,932.16. The S&P 500 index fell 1.14%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite retreated 1.24%. The small-cap Russell 2000 dropped 1.57%.
Shares of electric vehicle (EV) companies tumbled, after US Senator Joe Manchin rejected President Joe Biden’s roughly US$2t Build Back Better legislation. The legislation will now likely fall one vote short in the Senate.
Tesla (TSLA US, -3.5%), Rivien Automotive (RIVN US, -7.9%), Faraday Future (FFIE US, -9.5) and Lucid Motors (LCID US, -5.0%) all dropped. The EV incentives under the Build Back Better plan include up to $12,500 per vehicle.
US-listed Chinese stocks decline for the fifth time in six sessions. The Invesco Golden Dragon China ETF (PGJ US), which tracks US-listed firms that derive the majority of their revenue from China, fell 4.9%.
Micron Technology (MU US, -2.2%) have jumped 6% in extended-hours trade after the memory-chip maker forecast an outlook and reported earnings that beat Wall Street estimates.
The US Treasury curve steepened. The 10-year Treasury note yield rose 2.04 basis points (bps) to 1.4225%, while the 2-year note yield fell 1.2 bps to 0.628%.
The most actively traded US gold futures (Feb) contracts settled down $10.30, or 0.6%, at US$1,794.60/oz. March silver, which is the most actively traded silver futures, fell 24.2 cents, or 1.1%, to end at US$22.291/oz.
The ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell 0.05% to 96.512.
The front-month Brent and WTI futures closed down $1.39 at US$72.13/bbl and $2.63 at US$68.23/bbl respectively. WTI Jan crude oil futures are now slightly lower than Feb futures, indicating adequate supply.
European equity markets finished lower on Mon. The UK FTSE lost 0.99%, France's CAC 40 fell 0.82%, while the German DAX retreated 1.88%.
Crazy volatility in the Turkish lira on Mon, which fell as much as 25%, before rebounding 40% from its low. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government promised to protect holders of lira deposits should declines against hard currencies exceed interest rates promised by banks.
The Chilean peso fell 4% on Mon to an all-time low following the election of 35- year old left-wing legislator Gabriel Boric as Chile’s new president. Chilean lithium mine