Friends
The rising fear that Covid variants may take the steam out of the great reopening sent stocks tumbling today. Over the past year we have seen certain stocks move higher while interest rates were rising. We saw other stocks move higher while interest rates dropped back down. But introduce a new concern over the coronavirus and the market averages sell off hard. We always remember the most recent crisis and Covid is still very prominent in investors minds. Sure, a few of the old stay at home names fared well today, but the cyclicals/value names, ones that are most sensitive to economic activity, took a beating.
For the day, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 725 points to finish the day at 33,962. The S&P 500 was down 68 points to close at 4,258. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 152 points to close at 14,274. Gold was down $3 to trade at $1,811 per ounce, while oil was down $5.61 to trade at $66.20 per barrel WTI.
As you see above, oil took a terrible beating as did other commodities sensitive to economic activity. But if this “delta” scare is “transitory” (see what I did there?) then the sell-off in economically sensitive stocks and commodities could present a buying opportunity. No one knows how the Covid situation will play out, thus the new round of uncertainty that we have seen introduced into the markets in the last week. Is this dip like all the others over the past few years, a buying opportunity? Well, we just don’t know. In the meantime a lot of corporate earnings will be mixed into this soup over the next couple of weeks. We’ll keep you informed. Stay tuned.
Have a nice evening everyone.
