Investor sentiment eased on Monday as concerns over the economic agenda of US President Joe Biden and the surge in the omicron virus drove stocks down. According to traders, the decline in volumes ahead of the holidays exacerbated market movements early this week.
That is why the S&P 500 posted its biggest three-day decline since May, driven largely by declines in commodity and financial stocks, as well as the dollar.
"There's kind of two dynamics going on. Probably the most important one is the imminent reduction in liquidity," said Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Management. "On top of that, you have the omicron concern," he added.
Meanwhile, economists at Goldman Sachs cut their forecasts for economic growth after Democratic Senator Joe Manchin rejected Biden's $ 2 trillion tax-and-spending package.
In Europe, member countries are imposing new restrictions to contain cases of coronavirus.
Other key events for this week are:
- policy decision of the Reserve Bank of Australia (Tuesday);
- oil inventory report of the EIA (Wednesday);
- speech of Bank of Japan chief Haruhiko Kuroda (Thursday);
- data on US consumer income, new home sales, durable goods, consumer sentiment and jobless claims (Thursday);
- closing of US markets (Friday)';
- early closing of European markets (Friday).