(Paris) Global markets continued to rise on Monday, preferring to look beyond the Omicron variant as the lack of investors between the holiday season was felt.
After a three-day weekend, Wall Street was up sharply: the Dow Jones gained 0.64%, the S&P 500 1.05% and the NASDAQ 1.11% around 5:40 pm GMT.
Europe for its part closed on a general rise: Paris (+ 0.76%) finished close to its closing record, Milan on an increase of 0.80% and Frankfurt at + 0.50%. London will remain closed until Wednesday.
“There is very little liquidity in the end-of-year sessions, so we can observe upward movements which remain quite significant, in Europe and the United States, with the NASDAQ taking more than 1%. It is the continuation of the movement of the last days ”, notes Florence Barjou, investment manager of Lyxor AM.
The markets do not seem more worried than that in the face of the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19: “We could have feared – with the rise of contaminations, the cancellation of flights, countries which are closing, in particular in Asia – a little more negative impact. And in fact the market prefers to look beyond that by saying to itself that this may be the last big wave, ”she adds, listing the positive factors in terms of treatments and vaccines.
But while new British studies indicate that Omicron will lead to fewer hospitalizations, its meteoric spread raises fears of restrictions or disorganization in economies in the short term.
Several countries have already announced reconfinements, local or national, or increased restrictions. The French executive is due to announce new measures in the evening after the country recorded a record for new infections on Saturday.
“This situation should cause tension only in the short term, the global recovery planned for 2022 is still on track,” says Jeffrey Halley, analyst for Oanda. Even if unpleasant surprises can always happen, according to Florence Barjou.
Omicron disrupts aviation and cruise lines
Nearly 2,500 flights were still canceled by airlines around the world on Monday, after more than 8,000 during the weekend, especially in China, Indonesia and the United States (a quarter of the total), according to a report from the Flightaware website. .
The Omicron variant of COVID-19 disrupts travel during the holidays, especially with sick or quarantined pilots.
On Wall Street, the airlines American Airlines and Delta gave respectively 0.66% and 0.70% during the session and United Airlines 0.86%.
In Europe, Air France-KLM suffered less (-0.20% to 3.93 euros), with a sharper drop for Aéroports de Paris (-0.98% to 111.35 euros), while Lufthansa sold 0.49% in Frankfurt, at 6.26 euros.
Also affected in their activities, cruise lines fell sharply, by 1.16% for Carnival and 1.92% for Royal Caribbean, after the appearance of cases on board ships and the opening of investigations by the US health authorities .
Daimler withdraws from Denza
The German manufacturer (-0.29% to 69.89 euros) will reduce its stake in the Denza joint venture manufacturer of electric cars, in which it is equally associated with Chinese BYD, he announced on Friday. BYD will own 90% of the company and Daimler 10% after a capital transfer by the end of 2022.
The title has evolved against other European car stocks, such as Volkswagen (+ 0.86% to 178.42 euros), BMW (+ 0.93% to 90 euros), and especially French with Renault (+ 1.36% at 30.18 euros) and Stellantis (+ 2.34% to 16.8 euros).
On the oil, euro and bitcoin side
Oil was advancing: around 5:35 p.m. GMT, the price of a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for February delivery gained 3.24% to 78.21 dollars. Closed Friday, the day when Brent had suffered profit-taking, WTI in New York for the same expiry was up to 75.69 dollars (+1.90%).
One euro was trading for 1.1323 dollars, against 1.1319 dollars at the end of last week (+ 0.05%).
Bitcoin edged up (+ 2.21%) to $ 51,950.