Reuters.- Wall Street closed lower this afternoon, with Carnival Corp and several airlines’ shares falling amid investor concern over the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and ahead of this week’s Federal Reserve meeting.
The travel-related stocks fell on Wall Street, when the fast-spreading variant was already responsible for around 40% of Covid-19 infections in London and at least one death in the UK.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Carnival Corp and Royal Caribbean Cruises tumbled, while the S&P 1500 airline index lost more than 2%.
“They are transport, restaurants, all the things that if it got bad enough to start putting new restrictions on people it wouldn’t be good for them“Said Tom Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments, which operates on Wall Street.
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Wall Street concerned about Omicron
“All of them have been carried away in recent months by the idea that we were going to return to normal,” he added.
Most of the top 11 industry indices in the S&P 500 fell, with only defensive sectors, such as consumer staples, utilities and real estate, gaining.
According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 lost 43.56 points, or 0.92%, to 4,668.46 units, while the Nasdaq lost 220.88 points, or 1.41%, to 15,409.72. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 313.98 points, or 0.87%, to 35,657.01 units.
Apple Inc went down, even after JP Morgan raised its price target for the iPhone maker. The company is close to becoming the first in the world to reach 3 trillion dollars in market value.
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