NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – Ironically, on “Black Friday” there is also a pitch-black day on the New York stock exchanges. The fear of a new variant of the coronavirus, which had already weighed heavily on the stock exchanges in Asia and Europe, led to a wave of sales in early trading, including US stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial dropped in the first few minutes of the shortened trade by 2.14 percent to 35 036.84 points. The day after “Thanksgiving”, US trading ends three hours earlier than usual.
The market-wide S&P 500 
also lost 1.48 percent to 4631.77 points. On the Nasdaq, technology stocks, some of which are viewed by investors as possible beneficiaries of an extended corona crisis, came under less pressure. The Nasdaq 100 selection index could not escape the downward spiral with a discount of 0.78 percent to 16,240.47 points.
Experts fear that variant B.1.1.529, discovered in southern Africa, is not only highly contagious due to an unusually large number of mutations, but could also penetrate the protective shield of the vaccines more easily. This makes investors’ lockdown worries, which recently arose because of the renewed wave of infections, boil up even further.
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