Sea of red prevails across stocks

Chris Beauchamp IG

Markets are enduring ‘Turnaround Tuesday’ this morning, reversing yesterday’s gains as the mood turns distinctly sour.

Stock markets fall back into the red.
Fears about inflation add to the worries.
EasyJet escapes heavy share price fall despite poor figures.

A much gloomier mood prevails across markets this morning, and for that, we have the Moderna CEO to thank. Yesterday saw the doom-laden consensus of last Friday swapped out for a much more optimistic one, as hopes of a smaller than feared hit from the new variant lifted indices. Today has been a reaction to that reaction, with the cue being the CEO comments; stocks have come off across the board, with global growth names hardest hit. Friday’s price action was likely a signal for at least a week of this kind of volatility, as markets scramble to price in the outlook using any data and news available. The dust will not settle for a while yet, and meanwhile, the inflation drumbeat continues to sound, providing another reason to worry for beleaguered investors. With central banks have done their utmost in the previous part of this crisis, there is fear that they will be less able to act this time, and indeed may still continue on a tightening path.

It has been a brutal half-year for easyJet shares, underlined by the numbers this morning. Despite all the talk of reorienting aircraft towards more profitable hubs, the numbers are grim, and with further travel restrictions coming there is certainly little incentive to go bargain hunting in airlines right now. The only saving grace is that, with the shares down by over 50% since their May peak, a lot of the bad news has been priced in.

Ahead of the open, we expect the Dow to start at 34,673, down 462 points from Monday’s close.

Author

Chris Beauchamp

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