Stock Market Today: Dow Rises Amid Omicron Seesaw, Oil Lifts Before
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It has been a volatile week on Wall Street.
Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
The stock market was rising Thursday in the latest seesaw of sentiment as investors consider Covid-19, monetary policy, and a looming deadline to fund the government.
Futures for the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
indicated an open 300 points or almost 1% higher, after the index tumbled 461 points Thursday to close at 34,022. Futures for the
S&P 500
and
Nasdaq
signaled a similarly upbeat start.
Overseas, Hong Kong’s
Hang Seng Index
rose 0.6% while the pan-European
Stoxx 600
slipped 1%. European bourses were broadly lower as they matched declines on Wall Street Wednesday.
Investor sentiment continues to seesaw amid the latest headlines on the new, heavily mutated Omicron variant of coronavirus that has prompted waves of travel restrictions and fears of a renewed global surge of Covid-19.
The specter of the Federal Reserve speeding up its plans to slow, or taper, its program of monthly asset purchases amid higher inflation, as well as a looming deadline to fund the federal government, represent other market pressures.
“Following one of the biggest selloffs of the year on Friday, we then had a partial bounceback on Monday, another bout of fears on Tuesday (not helped by the prospect of faster tapering), and yesterday saw another rally back before risk sentiment turned sharply later in the day as an initial case of the Omicron variant was discovered in the U.S.,” noted Jim Reid, a strategist at Deutsche Bank.
“One thing to keep an eye out [for] over the next 24 hours will be any news on a government shutdown, with funding currently set to run out by the weekend as it stands. The headlines yesterday weren’t promising for those hoping for an uneventful, tidy resolution,” Reid added.
Crude prices, which have been battered amid demand fears raised by the Omicron variant, rebounded ahead of a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies later in the day. Futures for international oil benchmark Brent rose 2.5% to around $70.50 a barrel, with U.S. futures for West Texas Intermediate crude similarly up to above $67.
Write to Jack Denton at
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