Markets off their record highs

Stocks on Wall Street fell for a second straight day on Tuesday as a global spike in coronavirus cases hit travel-related shares and investors had second thoughts about big U.S. banks’ apparently stellar earnings last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.75% to 33,821.3. The S&P 500 shed 0.68% to 4,134.94 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.92% to 13,786.27. It was the first back-to-back declines for the S&P since the end of March. The CBOE volatility index, known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, climbed above 19 points for the first time since March 31, before closing at 18.71.

European shares lost nearly 2%, after hitting record highs a day earlier, as tobacco companies weighed on London stocks and many regional indexes edged off pre-pandemic highs. The pan-regional STOXX 600 index dropped 1.9% in its biggest one-day decline this year, accelerating losses after a lower opening on Wall Street. Britain’s blue-chip FTSE 100 fell 2% and logged its sharpest percentage decline in two months, while Germany’s DAX was down 1.6%. Spain’s IBEX dropped 2.9% for its worst session since December.

Maltese markets also fell, with the MSE Equity Total Return Index closing down 1.49 percent at 7,874.045 points. Mapfre Middlesea plc recorded the largest loss and dropped 10.17 percent to €2.12, following by Simonds Farsons Cisk Plc which lost 8 percent to €8.05. BMIT Technologies Plc posted the only gain with shares up 0.95 percent at €0.53.

Source: Reuters, Malta Stock Exchange

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