Wall Street closed significantly higher on Tuesday after a bruising session the prior day, with oil prices also gaining as investors sought riskier assets despite surging cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant around the world.
U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he would be taking steps to fight the Omicron variant, by opening federal testing sites in New York City and buying 500 million at-home tests Americans can order online for free. Israel is set to offer a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccination to people over 60 years old.
World shares had fallen earlier in the week after Omicron infections multiplied around the world, but strong corporate earnings and reports that Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine provides protection against the variant gave investors hope on Tuesday. U.S. stocks had also taken a hit after Biden’s $1.75 trillion spending bill was dealt a potentially fatal blow on Sunday.
“We think this was kind of overdue over the past couple of weeks. We’re kind of set up for a rally in time for Santa Claus, which officially begins next Monday,” said Scott Brown, technical market strategist at LPL Financial (NASDAQ:LPLA), explaining that a so-called Santa Claus rally can happen in the last five trading days of the year and first two of the new year.
The FTSE MIB climbed down by 0.65% to 26,625.20. In the cash markets, the DAX Germany was trading up by 0.11% to 15,462.65. CAC 40 in France rose by 0.17% to 6,976.37 while the FTSE 100 in the U.K. was fell by 0.23% to 7,27.35 ,at the time of writing.
