Tech and growth stock-heavy index, the Nasdaq Composite, escaped the market correction on Thursday, as virus fears crunched over-extended value equities.
European equities fell sharply during the morning, with the DAX and CAC falling 0.88% and 0.67% apiece. Following was the FTSE, who, having suffered 5% losses by Kingfisher and Johnson Matthey, extended yesterday’s losses, and fell 0.80%.
Speaking on the sour mood across equities, IG Chief Market Analyst, Chris Beauchamp, said: “After the soar-away gains of the past two weeks, equities now look much more richly-valued, and thus vulnerable to an outbreak of bad news.”
“This is precisely what we got in the form of spreading infections in the US but also in Japan, a worrying sign indeed for a country that had been successful earlier in the year in controlling the spread.”
“Even reports of success for AstraZeneca’s new vaccine were not enough, the impact of these vaccine announcements having been on a declining trend since the first, excitedly-received news from Pfizer almost three weeks ago.”
“There appears to be little desire to chase equities at these levels, and perhaps rightly so, with markets looking priced for perfection and still vulnerable to some short-term turbulence.
Over the pond, the Dow Jones shed 0.13%. Interestingly, though, the Nasdaq bucked the trend, and bounced by around 0.60%. This was partially led by some modest gains from big tech stocks, with Amazon, Apple and Facebook all rising by around 0.40%, while Microsoft bounced by 0.85% and Alphabet rallied 1%.
Other interesting developments came from Sonos, soaring 28%, while hot stocks NIO bounced 7%. In the meantime, Black Friday and the Christmas holiday have seen Wayfair and Etsy soar, up around 6% apiece.
