A ripple of tighter lockdown restrictions in Europe forced investors to consider the pandemic present rather than the vaccine future on Tuesday.
It seems like the Moderna news doesn’t have quite the same legs as the initial Pfizer)/BioNTech announcement, though the latter vaccine update did also have the benefit of coming in the swell of Biden election win gains.
Nevertheless the markets losses were on the lower end of the spectrum, a barely perceptible retreat compared to the bounding growth of the last couple of weeks.
The FTSE shed around 30 points after the bell, leaving it with a 5 point cushion above 6,400. The FTSE 250 was only a tad worse, down half a percent, despite a 5% plunge from easyJet (LON:EZJ), after the beleaguered airline announced the first annual loss in its history.
The DAX, meanwhile, lost 0.3% to sit at 13,125, with the CAC dropping to 5,465 following a 20 point dip.
As for the Dow Jones, a record close on Monday evening – who’d have thought that was a possibility back in March – is set to give way to a similarly timid start, with the index heading for a 0.3% fall at the open.
Barring another vaccine update – a progress report from the AstraZenaca-Oxford trial is the most anticipated of those left – the day’s highlight could be the US retail sales. Not that they’re particularly promising; analysts are expecting a drop from 1.9% to 0.5% month-on-month.
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