US stocks plummeted Tuesday as renewed concerns about the Omicron variant of Covid-19 weighed on sentiment. Comments from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell didn’t help. Powell told Congress that the Fed no longer thought inflation was “transitory” and he hinted that the Fed could accelerate its plans to cut back on, or taper, bond purchases.
As stocks settle after the trading day, levels might still change slightly.
Just call it a flight to iSafety.
Apple (AAPL) was up 2.8% in late afternoon trading Tuesday. That made it one of only two Dow stocks in the green on what was a brutal day for markets due to the Omicron variant and Fed tapering worries. Nike (NKE) was the only other gainer.
Apple was also the second biggest winner in the S&P 500 and was just one of 28 stocks in that blue chip index trading higher. Vaccine maker Pfizer (PFE), a former Dow component, was the biggest winner in the S&P 500 with a nearly 3% gain.
There was no specific catalyst or news event to explain why Apple was bucking the down trend. But the iPhone maker is clearly a favorite of investors (and gadget lovers) thanks to its strong earnings and sales growth. Having $191 billion in cash on the balance sheet probably helps too. Apple stock even pays a small dividend.
Apple shares are now up nearly 25% this year and the company is worth a whopping $2.7 trillion. Investors are hoping the new iPhone 13 will keep the momentum going for the tech giant.
Oil prices fell sharply on Tuesday to levels unseen since late August on worries that Omicron will dent previously robust demand for energy.
US crude dropped nearly 7% to $65.30 a barrel in afternoon trading. At session lows, oil fell below $65 a barrel for the first time in three months.
The selloff leaves oil down by a staggering 23% in just the past three weeks. As recently as November 10, crude was flirting with $85 a barrel.
The reversal was at first driven by an expectation that the United States and other countries would tap strategic oil reserves to cool off red-hot prices.
But more recently oil is losing steam on fears the new Covid variant will hurt oil demand by causing fewer people to drive, fly and commute. Crude plunged by 13% on Friday, its worst day since April 2020, and only posted a modest rebound on Monday.
Investors got a one-two punch of bad news Tuesday.
Markets started the day on a sour note, when Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said that current vaccines will struggle with Omicron.
Then, Fed Chair Jerome Powell testified before the Senate Banking Committee that the central bank would consider cutting back on its emergency economic stimulus earlier than expected.
Just a few days removed from the market’s worst day since February, stocks tumbled once again.
Stocks aren’t the only thing falling today, bond yields are also way down. Just not as much as they were a little while ago.
The 10-year US Treasury bond yield is 0.06 percentage points lower at 1.47%, the lowest level since the start of the month. But prior to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s comments concerning the timeline of the central bank’s stimulus wind-down, they were even lower.
Powell saying that the Fed’s tapering might wrap up sooner than expected moved up the anticipated timeline of the first likely interest rate hike of this economic cycle. This is affecting bond yields because they track future interest rate expectations.
America’s labor force participation hasn’t recovered as much as other labor market data points have in the recovery. That’s a massive issue, not only because there’s a worker shortage, but also because it’s disproportionately affecting women.
Having paid leave policies as well as universal pre-K to account for childcare in the first two years of a child’s life could help get women to rejoin the labor force, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during today’s Senate hearing.
The stock market looks a lot uglier in the late morning than it did at the open… and we opened in the red!
All three major indexes are sharply lower as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen are talking about the economy in Washington.
The Dow is 1.7%, or 590 points, lower, while the broader S&P 500 is down 1.6%. The Nasdaq Composite has fallen 1.7%.
Why are markets so freaked out? It may have been the tapering talk…
The Fed announced an end to its pandemic-era stimulus program earlier this month, meaning that it is decreasing the amount of securities is buys every month. The pace of this so-called “taper” is now the next big topic. And it seemed that Powell indicated this pace could pick up given the health of the recovery and inflationary pressures.
Ouch – at least for stocks. The stock market likes an accommodative Fed, so any tightening is news the market doesn’t like.
Elsewhere, Bitcoin has given up its gains of the morning and is now flat – compared with a 3% advance not long ago.
Now that the Federal Reserve has announced the end to its pandemic-era stimulus program, the next question is how long will it take until its fully rolled off.
That could happen sooner than most expect.
“At this point the economy is very strong and inflationary pressures are high and it is therefore appropriate in my view to consider wrapping up the taper of our asset purchases … perhaps a few months sooner,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell testified before the Senate Tuesday.
Earlier this month, the Fed announced it would reduce the pace of those monthly purchases, slashing bond buying by $10 billion for Treasury securities and $5 billion for agency mortgage-backed securities.
At its December meeting, the central bankers will discuss whether this pace is still appropriate, Powell said.
He also added that by then, the bankers will have seen another labor market report – due this Friday – and might know more about the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
It’s about learning about the transmissibility, the ability of existing vaccines working against it and about the severity of the illness if contracted, Powell said.
“Then and only then we can make an assessment on the effect on the economy,” he added.
“Transitory” has been one of those pandemic buzzwords to describe inflation. Fed Chair Jerome Powell thinks it’s time we stop using it.
The Federal Reserve uses “transitory” to describe the Covid-era jump in prices, which the central bank believes to be temporary. Although temporary sounds like it should be short-term, prices have been on the rise for a while now.
The traditional meaning of “transitory” is not what the Fed thinks it means at all. According to the central bank, transitory means it won’t leave any marks on the economy one the trends reverse again… whenever that may be.
“Everything is transitory. Life is transitory,” said Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey during the hearing.
“It’s probably a good time to retire that word and explain what we mean,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in response.
He continued that the Fed’s test for high inflation has been met now, meaning that prices have been on the rise for long enough for the central bank to change its policy, which it announced earlier this month.
“Generally speaking the higher prices we’re seeing can be traced back to the pandemic,” Powell said. But the increases are now more broad, and the upward pressure on inflation is no longer isolated, he added.
The Omicron variant is on everyone’s mind, but Treasury Secretary Yellen echoed President Joe Biden in saying that we simply didn’t know enough about it yet.
“We’re still waiting for more data but what remains true is that our best protection against the virus is the vaccine,” Yellen said in her opening remarks at the Senate hearing. “People should get vaccinated or boosted.”
Even so, Yellen believes that the recovery is still in a good place, particularly when comparing it to last winter, when things weren’t looking so good.
The Secretary also stressed again that Congress needed to expand the US debt limit to ensure that the recovery can continue.
The Treasury Department has made clear that it thinks stablecoins – cryptocurrencies that are pegged to real-world assets such as the US dollar – should be regulated.
At the start of the month, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency urged Congress to slap bank-like rules on the assets.
But on Tuesday, Yellen said: “I believe that stablecoins can lead to some efficiency in the payments system…,” the Secretary said, “but only if they’re adequately regulated.”
In Washington, a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is getting under way.
“The recent rise in Covid-19 cases and the emergence of the Omicron variant pose downside risks to employment and economic activity and increased uncertainty for inflation,” Powell wrote in prepared testimony he’s set to deliver Tuesday to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Powell also noted the economy took a body blow in the summer as the Delta variant spread across the globe. Many Americans were afraid to travel, shop, eat at restaurants and return to the office. That kept caregivers at home, exacerbating the labor shortage and supply chain crisis that have held back the US economy.
Americans are feeling less confident about the economy again, according to new data from The Conference Board.
The consumer confidence index slipped to 109.5, lower than the level economists had expected, and below the 111.6 level recorded in October.
Bot the assessments of current business and job conditions, as well as the near-term outlook for incomes, business, and job conditions fell this month.
“Expectations about short-term growth prospects ticked up, but job and income prospects ticked down. Concerns about rising prices—and, to a lesser degree, the Delta variant—were the primary drivers of the slight decline in confidence,” said Lynn Franco, Senior Director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board.
And that’s just as the Omicron variant is arriving in the collective consciousness.
The Conference Board thinks a resurgence in infections, as well as rising prices, could be a threat to economic growth in the months to come, even though a strong holiday season is expected.
US stocks opened in the red again Tuesday, rattled by renewed worries about the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus.
Investors fear that the variant could evade some immunity provided by vaccines and antibodies, sending the global economy back into trouble. Market participants will also be watching Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday morning.
Oil prices are sliding, after collapsing Friday on fears that the variant would hurt energy demand by eating into the amount of people driving and flying.
Both Brent crude, the global benchmark, and West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, fell about 4% to trade below $71 and $68 a barrel, respectively.
US stock futures tumbled Tuesday after bouncing back Monday.
Investors fear that the Omicron variant could evade some immunity provided by vaccines and antibodies, sending the global economy back into trouble.
Jerome Powell, who is set to testify before the Senate Tuesday morning, wrote in prepared testimony that Omicron could worsen inflation, the job market and the supply chain crisis if it proves to be a potent virus.
Global stocks and oil prices are falling again after a brief respite Monday from the heavy sell-off triggered by the emergence of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
Stocks in Asia Pacific and Europe slid, and oil prices fell about 2% as more countries reported cases of the variant and imposed new travel restrictions. The mood was also dampened by a warning from Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel that current vaccines will struggle with Omicron.
“There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level . . . we had with [the] Delta [variant],” Bancel said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Tuesday. “I think it’s going to be a material drop. I just don’t know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I’ve talked to … are like, ‘This is not going to be good’.”
South Korea’s Kospi (KOSPI) led losses in the region, falling 2.4%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 (N225) dropped 1.6%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index (HSI) fell 1.6%. The Shanghai Composite (SHCOMP) was flat. China’s economy got some good news Tuesday as its big factories showed signs of a recovery. European indexes opened about 1% lower.
