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(Reuters) -European shares rebounded on Tuesday after a brutal selloff in the previous session, with a jump in commodity stocks offsetting concerns about the Omicron coronavirus variant.
The pan-European STOXX 600 added 1.0% with miners and oil stocks among the biggest winners on the back of higher copper and crude prices amid a slight upturn in risk appetite. [O/R] [MET/L]
“Santa was nowhere to be seen in the doom and gloom yesterday, and a lot of people are buying the dip today, but investors are so nervous about what’s happening that the slightest bit of news is tipping their hand,” said Danni Hewson, financial analyst at AJ Bell.
The benchmark rebounded from two days of losses with fears around COVID-related restrictions weighing on sentiment. Analysts expect risk appetite to remain range-bound and indexes to stay volatile as liquidity weakens ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Meanwhile, several countries are on high alert in the run up to the holidays as the health crisis renews uncertainty in markets. The fast-spreading COVID-19 variant has become the dominant one in the U.S., and claimed the life of an unvaccinated man in Texas on Monday.
Additionally, on Tuesday, New Zealand postponed its border re-opening plans until end-February over Omicron concerns.
“It’s going to be a difficult start to 2022, even if the major economies don’t announce a lockdown – for example, Germany banning unvaccinated people from entering non-essential establishments is going to impact consumer confidence as well as the take in businesses,” Hewson added.
German consumer morale is expected to further darken at the start of 2022 as Omicron clouds outlook for Europe’s largest economy, a new survey showed.
On Tuesday, semiconductor stocks ASML Holding (NASDAQ:ASML), ASM International (OTC:ASMIY), Infineon (OTC:IFNNY) Technologies and STMicroelectronics rose around 2% each after U.S. chipmaker Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) beat market expectations in its trading update.
Sporting goods makers Adidas (OTC:ADDYY) and Puma added 1.3% and 0.8% following Nike (NYSE:NKE)’s quarterly beat.
Bollore leaped 9.6% to the top of the STOXX 600 after the conglomerate owned by billionaire Vincent Bollore’s family received a $6.4 billion offer for its African logistics assets.
Sanofi (NASDAQ:SNY) gained 0.3% after announcing it would buy Amunix Pharmaceuticals for about $1 billion.
