Stocks down on imminent Fed tightening, “tidal wave” of Omicron infections

The S&P 500 fell 0.9 percent on Monday.

“With the first Fed tightening imminently pending, investors are dumping anything but risk-off assets,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist for Leuthold Group.

Also worrying investors is the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus.

“Given the current available data, it is likely that Omicron will outpace the Delta variant where community transmission occurs,” the World Health Organization said last week.

UK Health Secretary Sajid Javic said on Monday that “we're facing a tidal wave of infection”.

And vaccines may not work as well against the new variant.

“Our findings show that vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease with the Omicron variant is significantly lower than with the Delta variant,” researchers at Oxford University wrote in a study released on Monday.