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Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened lower on Friday on fears that the Covid-19 pandemic will do more damage over a longer period than thought, even despite the rollout of vaccines across the world.
By 9:40 AM ET (1440 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 217 points, or 0.7%, at 30,864 points. The S&P 500 was down 0.6% and the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.3%.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden had warned of another 100,000 deaths in this U.S. in the coming month, in an abrupt change of style from his predecessor, as regards the management of popular expectations. The emergence of new strains of the virus across the world, including some that are more easily transmitted than the original variant, has increasingly weighed on global markets this week, with regional lockdowns in parts of China and Europe all casting doubt over the narrative of a vigorous economic rebound in 2021.
