Wall Street joins global slump for stocks on omicron jitters

Stocks on Wall Street added to their recent string of losses Monday, joining a worldwide slump by financial markets amid worries about how badly the omicron variant, inflation and other forces will hit the economy.

The S&P 500 fell 1.1% for its third straight drop. The decline followed similar drops across Europe and Asia. Stocks of oil producers helped lead the way lower after the price of U.S. crude fell 3.7% on concerns the newest coronanvirus variant could lead factories, airplanes and drivers to burn less fuel.

Omicron may be the scariest force hitting markets, but it’s not the only one. A proposed $2 trillion spending program by the U.S. government took a potential death blow over the weekend when an influential senator said he could not support it. Markets are also still absorbing last week’s momentous move by the Federal Reserve to more quickly remove the aid it’s throwing at the economy, because of rising inflation.

They all combined to drag the benchmark S&P 500 52.62 points lower to 4,568.02. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 433.28 points, or 1.2%, to 34,932.16. The Nasdaq composite fell 188.74 points, or 1.2%, to 14,980.94.

Smaller company stocks fared worse than the rest of the market. The Russell 2000 index fell 34.06 points, or 1.6%, to 2,139.87. In global markets, Germany’s DAX lost 1.9% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 2.1%.

“Omicron threatens to be the Grinch to rob Christmas,” Mizuho Bank’s Vishnu Varathan said in a report.