The US stock markets grew on Monday, 29 November, on the background of the US President’s statement that there was no need for any additional restrictions on the US territory due to the new omicron version of the coronavirus. “If citizens vaccinate and wear masks, there is no need for lockdowns,” Joe Biden reassured investors.
The Dow Jones index added 0.68%
the S&P 500 rose 1.32% and the Nasdaq rose 1.88%. Despite the rise in the indices, there was no clear sectoral superiority for anyone, unless you take into account the general interest in technology papers.
Biden recommends wearing masks to avoid another lockdown. Photo: Yandex Images
Moderna (MRNA) stayed in the lead as on the premarket, its shares gained almost 12%. And at the same time Novavax (NVAX) is losing more than eleven and Pfizer (PFE) almost three.
Against the weakest stock in the Dow Jones pharmaceutical Merck (MRK), which lost more than 5% on a downgrade from Citi, United Health (UTH) shares were the index leader with just under three percent.
Big Tech were in demand, which actually made the index performance possible. Investors were interested in Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN) Meta Platforms (FB) and Apple (AAPL) which added just over 2%. Tesla (TSLA) was also better than the market +4.8%.
Oil Didn’t Bounce
Over the weekend, after Friday’s “spill”, analysts were talking in one voice about an imminent rebound in oil prices on Monday. During Asian and European sessions everything was moving towards it.
Both WTI and Brent futures were trading above Friday’s close by 5%. However, with the beginning of active trading in the U.S. the officials of the United States interfered into the matter and cherished the idea of the quotes’ decrease.
Amos Hochstein, senior advisor for energy security of the U.S. State Department announced about possible increase of oil interventions at the expense of strategic reserves.
In an interview with CNBC, he hoped that the current, already engaged, limits will have a sufficient impact on the black gold market. Otherwise Washington is ready to repeat the action.
State Department on the guard of fuel prices in the United States. Photo: Yandex Images
Whether it was an attempt to hint to the OPEC+ cartel, meeting this week, not to get into an outright commodity confrontation with Washington, or whether Hochstein’s words were trivial bravado, but seller pressure on oil quotations dashed any hopes of a meaningful rebound
.
European Brent even went down in this background, but still managed to stay above $73 per barrel in the last hour of trading with a paltry +0.65% by the end of the session. The results for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) are more optimistic, with the US benchmark adding more than 2.5%.
