Blistering stock rally pauses for breath

Blistering stock rally pauses for breath

A Christmas rally in European shares paused near five-week highs on Wednesday, as investors exercised a bit of caution going into the end of the year with Omicron coronavirus cases swelling globally. Following a strong run over the festive season, stock market investors were looking to position more conservatively in the last few sessions of 2021 and pay a bit more attention to the uncertainty caused by the persistence of COVID-19 globally. Following a weak session in Asian stock markets, European stock markets opened flat to a touch higher with the pan-European Stoxx 600 index up 0.2%, capping a 5.7% rise this month so far. But Wall Street futures were pointing to a bounceback and oil prices LCOc1 edged higher as optimism refused to be beaten down by concerns around the impact of Omicron on global economies. .N , "The Omicron variant continues to rage and fails to register on this market, even as global cases topped a million for the second day running," strategists at SaxoBank said in a note. Though they noted that the "blistering rally in equity markets" seems to have paused, the bounce back in the futures market has already erased some of the modest damage,