US President Joe Biden said on Friday that he is not concerned about the plunge in the US stock market and he had expected it over concerns related to the new Omicron coronavirus variant.“I expected it,” Biden told reporters when asked if he is worried about the stock market plunge.
Earlier on Friday, the US stock market fell 900 points over concerns about the new variant of the novel coronavirus detected in southern Africa.
The US Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 905 points lower, losing 2.5%, as all sectors slid sharply into negative. The S&P 500 slipped 2.27%, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.23%, according to CNBC.
Global oil prices also plummeted, with the benchmark blend of oil, Brent, losing 11.26% to slip from $82.26 to around $72.84 per barrel and the American benchmark blend, WTI, losing 12.57% to reach $68.16 per barrel as of 16:52 GMT.
The new variant, B.1.1.529, is reported to carry an exceptionally high number of mutations, many of them in spike proteins, the main target of COVID-19 vaccines, potentially making it even more transmissible than the “delta” strain, which previously became globally dominant.
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