Investing.com — U.S. stock markets fell at the opening on Tuesday as renewed fears about the global pandemic weighed on sentiment toward internationally active companies.
The coronavirus is spiraling out of control in India and, increasingly, Pakistan, two countries that are home to over 20% of the world’s population and over 14% of its gross domestic product. That’s leading to the country suspending the export of vaccines to countries in Europe and elsewhere in the world, slowing global progress toward herd immunity.
By 9:45 AM ET (1445 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 115 points, or 0.3%, at 33,962 points, while the S&P 500 was down 0.2%. The Nasdaq Composite outperformed, as is usual when pandemic concerns dominate, paring overnight losses to trade effectively unchanged.
The day was dominated by a slew of earnings but arguably the biggest eye-catcher was the sustained weakness of Altria (NYSE:MO), which fell another 6.5% on the back of a Wall Street Journal report saying that the administration is looking at new regulation to cut the amount of nicotine in cigarettes. That would make them less addictive, putting fresh pressure on long-term sales. Altria, which owns the Marlboro brand, had already fallen 6% on Monday in response to the initial news.
