Markets fall amid “harsh near-term reality” of COVID-19

Markets fell on Friday.

The S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent, the STOXX Europe 600 fell 0.6 percent and the Shanghai Composite fell 0.4 percent.

Tom Essaye, founder of Sevens Report, said that “it’s becoming more unclear when Democrats’ ambitious stimulus goals will become law”.

Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, said in a note that the focus in the COVID-19 pandemic, “which normally emphasizes vaccine optimism over the harsh near-term reality, is swinging back towards the latter”.

Indeed, on Friday, US President Joe Biden said that the American death toll from the disease is “expected to reach well over 600,000” after hitting 400,000 on Tuesday.

In Europe, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday that the new English variant of COVID-19 “may be associated with a higher degree of mortality”.