Stockmarkets are trading on thin ice as Omicron variant spreads

The Omicron variant of Covid-19 is driving stockmarkets down, with travel and leisure stocks particularly badly hit.

People waiting for Covid tests
It is too soon to conclude that Omicron is a “nightmare variant”
(Image credit: © EMMANUEL CROSET/AFP via Getty Images)

The Omicron variant of Covid-19 is “a cause for concern, not a cause for panic”, according to US president Joe Biden. Markets disagree. The FTSE 100 tumbled by 3.6% last Friday, its worst day since June 2020. This week the index rounded out its worst month in over a year. Traders dusted off the old lockdown playbook, selling travel and leisure stocks and crowding into tech. The CBOE VIX volatility index, the US stockmarket’s “fear gauge”, recorded its biggest gain in ten months.

Investors fly in the dark

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.