Markets rise, Covid-19 variant from India a threat

Markets rose on Friday.

The S&P 500 jumped 1.5 percent, the STOXX Euroipe 600 rose 1.2 percent and the Nikkei 225 surged 2.3 percent.

“The corporate turnaround is strong enough to keep markets rising, even as bond yields increase in anticipation of central bank tightening,” Robert Buckland, equity strategist at Citi, said in a note.

Still, stocks may not be out of the woods.

“There needs to be a correction into the summer that is meaningful enough to eliminate the extreme intermediate-term overbought condition and excess optimism,” said Tony Dwyer, chief market strategist at Canaccord Genuity.

Also, even as the US and elsewhere ease COVID-19-related restrictions, the UK warned on Friday that the variant from India has the potential to derail the easing process.

England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, said that there is “confidence” that the variant is “more transmissible” than the variants already circulating in the country.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that “this new variant could pose a serious disruption to our progress”.