The dreary November is followed by a possibly even gloomy December. The appearance of the new Corona variant Omikron in the middle of an ongoing Corona wave startled people all over the world. The economy also fears new lockdowns as a result. Concerns about the new variant had sent the German leading index Dax down last week. On the stock exchange, there was great disillusionment about a second Christmas party, which would again take place under the sign of Corona. After the Black Friday price fall last week, the turbulence continued in the past few days. The market is dominated by uncertainty.

On Tuesday, Moderna boss Stéphane Bancel gave the "Financial Times" an interview in which he said that it will probably take months to produce a vaccine that also works against Omikron. We still have to wait for the data on how the current vaccines work against the new variant. And the US pharmaceutical company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals also warned that antibody therapy and other comparable agents against corona could be less effective against Omikron. So far, market participants have assumed that the pandemic situation in the industrialized countries is manageable and the resulting economic risks are limited. This feeling, writes Jan Viebig from Oddo BHF in a market commentary, was deceptive.

According to Ufuk Boydak from Loys AG in his market outlook, the greatest risk is currently still from the inflationary development on the goods markets and the corresponding reaction of the central banks. The head of the US Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, announced this week that inflation is probably more stubborn than assumed. It is now being examined whether to reduce bond purchases more quickly - also known as tapering in technical jargon. This brings a tighter monetary policy closer, even if experts assume that the central bank will act more cautiously against the background of a nervous economy.

Corona, high inflation and ongoing delivery bottlenecks - all of this put the major leading indices under international pressure.

In Europe, the exchange rate losses were initially stronger than in the USA.

At the end of the week, the Dax started a recovery attempt, but ended the week with a minus.