Stock Market Today: Dow Bounces Back as Covid Variant Fears Ease

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Stocks were rebounding Monday following Friday’s rout as vaccine makers said that they can adjust their Covid-19 vaccines to adequately immunize against the Omicron variant. 

In afternoon trading, the

Dow Jones Industrial Average
was up 320 points, or 0.9%, after the blue-chip benchmark plunged 905 points Friday. The

S&P 500
was up 1.6%, and the

Nasdaq Composite
advanced 2.1%. All three indexes notched their worst Black Friday on record at the end of last week, with the Dow suffering its worst day of the year. The last time the Nasdaq moved at least 2% on back-to-back days was March 8 and March 9 of this year.

“Keep in mind, while COVID continues to be a serious threat, we’re in a very different place than we were at the start of the pandemic in terms of medical advances and the strength of our economy,” wrote Chris Larkin, managing director of trading at ETrade. 

Pfizer

(ticker: PFE) said over the weekend it can adapt its vaccine to address the new variant within 6 weeks.

Moderna

(MRNA) said it could potentially roll out a reformulated vaccine by early 2022. Moderna stock was up 11% Monday, while Pfizer was down 1.2%.

It wasn’t just stocks that were signaling investor optimism. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 1.53% from 1.48% at Friday’s close, a sign that that investors are moving out of safer assets and into risky ones. The price of WTI crude oil rose more than 4% to above $70 a barrel after having dropped more than 10% Friday. 

These are all good signs, but markets are still monitoring the Covid-19 situation. Just this month, new lockdowns in Europe were announced and the Omicron variant seems to be spreading globally. 

“Expect markets to remain choppy near term as we wait for further details on the new variant,” wrote Keith Lerner, co-chief investment officer at Truist. 

Overseas, London’s

FTSE 100
climbed 0.9%, rebounding from its largest one-day drop of 2021. In Asia, where markets closed before Friday’s selloff steepened, Hong Kong’s

Hang Seng Index
was 1% lower.

Here are five stocks on the move Monday:

Sectors that were slammed Friday—like travel—were generally higher, but most remained below levels seen before news of Omicron broke. Cruise operator

Carnival

(CCL) rose 1.5% initially, before that gain moderated to 0.4%. “I also would be buying travel/leisure stocks as if there is a mega trend that keeps bouncing back in the face of Covid,” wrote Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group. 

Hyatt Hotels

(H) gained 4.2% after getting upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JPMorgan.

TJX Cos.

(TJX) stock advanced 1.8% after getting upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup. 

Bumble

(BMBL) stock rose 3.5% after getting upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Raymond James. 

United Parcel Service

(UPS) stock dropped 0.4% after getting downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank. 

Write to Jacob Sonenshine at jacob.sonenshine@barrons.com and Jack Denton at jack.denton@dowjones.com