(AOF) – Global equity markets capsized after the detection of a potentially very dangerous new variant. The CAC 40 plunged 4.75% to 6,739.73 points while the Euro Stoxx 50 dropped 4.65% to 4,093.72 points. On Wall Street too, investors avoid risk. Around 5:30 p.m., the Dow Jones lost 2.9% and the Nasdaq, 1.9%. Sign of the extreme ambient nervousness, the Vix index, called “of fear”, jumped 40% to reach its highest level since September 20.
This Black Friday has never been so aptly named. Investors were brutally brought from the start of the session to the worst hours of late February 2020, when the pandemic was spreading around the world.
The discovery of a new variant, B.1.1.529, in South Africa potentially highly contagious and possibly resistant to current vaccines has left the world in awe. At present, information on this new strain is scarce.
However, the few announcements from the public authorities are worrying and sound with an air of “déjà vu”.
Several European countries have already suspended their air links with southern Africa. This afternoon, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, went further by calling for the suspension of air links to countries where the new variant of Covid-19 has been detected, namely with South Africa. South, Botswana, but also Hong Kong and Belgium.
Pfizer tried to reassure by promising that a new vaccine could be ready in a hundred days, but three months may seem like a long time.
Pending better visibility, operators are deserting risky assets such as stocks, currencies and oil. Even bitcoin, despite being considered a safe haven, is not immune to panic.
The flight to quality has benefited, as usual, bonds, gold, yen and Swiss franc.
On the Paris Stock Exchange as in other world markets, values related to transport, tourism or trade have sank like Unibail-Rodamco (-11.8%), Airbus (-11.5%) and Safran (-10.3%).
The so-called “Covid” health stocks have benefited fully from the situation: Eurofins has thus jumped by 7.9%, while within the SBF120, Valneva has soared by 9%.
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