S&P 500

US indices showed slight gains on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 trading near yearly highs. It was up by 0.14%, while Dow and Nasdaq rose 0.25% and 0.1% respectively.

Asian markets, on the other hand, were multidirectional, with China indices climbing by 0.8%, while Japan indices dipped by 0.1%.

With regards to the coronavirus, the total number of new cases all over the world jumped to a record 1,613,000 as of yesterday. A huge part of it came from the United States, followed by 208,000 from France, 183,000 from the UK and 100,000 each from Spain and Italy. Mortality was also high in the US - 1,777 a day - while European countries have a low rate.

But despite this alarming data, experts remain optimistic because the number of hospitalizations is still 3 times lower than during the peak of the pandemic. For example, 6,100 were hospitalized in New York on Wednesday, much lower than the 19,500 before. In the UK, hospitalizations are low as well, and mortality has even decreased in the last 2 days.

It should be noted though that the situation is deteriorating rapidly, and it is not clear whether hospitalizations will surge. So far, the situation looks like omicron is much more contagious than previous covid strains, but it is also much less dangerous.

Going back to the markets, oil hit its highest price since November, with Brent trading at $ 79.10.

In Europe, Gazprom has not pumped gasthrough its existing facilities for 10 days. At the same time, it said the Nord Stream 2 is already fully operational, but Europe is still choosing gas from gas storage facilities. The situation is likely to develop in early January.

Gas futures on the ICE exchange are gradually declining, but remained above $ 1000 per thousand cubic meters of gas yesterday.

Talking about inventories, oil supply in the US significantly decreased to 3.5 million over the week. Gasoline inventories also dropped to 1.5 million barrels.

The boom in the US real estate market also slowed in November. Home sales declined to 2.2% after increasing sharply by 7.5% in October.

Today, the final employment report for 2021 will be released. The forecast is a 200 increase to jobless claims and and approximately 1.85 million long-term unemployed.

The US market, on the one hand, will react to the outbreak of omicron in the US and the world. But on the other hand, market activity is clearly falling every day.

Talking about dollar, there was a recovery in the foreign exchange market yesterday, so USDX dropped slightly to 96.05 points, with a range of 95.70 - 96.30.

Accordingly, USD/CAD traded at 1.2800, with a range of 1.2760 - 1.2860. It appears that the pair is ready for growth as soon as there is a corrective decline in oil prices.

Conclusion: The market is very thin and the turnover is low. There will probably be a decline in the omicron outbreak in the US.