Assets are cheaper today than yesterday, a combination of, thin trading, early close, no senior staff, and the news of a heavily-mutated Covid variant spooked markets greatly. One of the biggest losers is oil prices, West Texas Intermediate is down over $9 USD a barrel, down 11.62%, other commodities are down but as severely. Equities are down around 2%.
A new Covid variant out of South Africa has placed airports around the world on high alert, Europe has banned all flights coming in from the Southern half of Africa, however, there have been cases reported as far as Hong Kong. Governments around the world are setting up new quarantine requirements, Canada as yet has done nothing.
Although markets are down today, if epidemiologists over the weekend determine that the current vaccines can withstand this new variant, then markets will likely return to their pre-Thanksgiving levels.
Range today will be wide especially as the equity markets are closing early.
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