Dow skids 600 points lower as spread of delta variant rattles Wall Street

What’s driving the market?

Pressure on global equity markets Monday was attributed largely to the continued rise in the number of COVID-19 cases world-wide.

“Markets seem to be grappling with the fear that the virus isn’t going away despite widespread vaccinations in the major economies,” said Marios Hadjikyriacos, senior investment analyst at XM, in a note.

“New and more resilient mutations might be a perpetual phenomenon that wreaks havoc, especially in developing countries, ultimately keeping a lid on the recovery,” he said. “The overwhelming firepower from governments and central banks was enough to fight the pandemic, but not enough to annihilate it.”

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Concerns about the virus are particularly problematic for sectors and industries, such as travel, that were expected to benefit the most from the reopening of the global economy.

Meanwhile, Treasurys continued to rally, keeping pressure on yields, which move in the opposite direction of prices. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note TMUBMUSD10Y, 1.197% was down more than 7 basis points near 1.228%, hitting its lowest since mid-February.

“In the week ahead, investors will likely regard a further weakening of bond yields as a potential ‘canary in the coal mine,’” potentially overshadowing earnings season, said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA, in a note.

“In an attempt to divine this message, the market may dismiss future better-than-expected EPS (earning sper share) growth as symptomatic of the transition from the windward to the leeward slope of the current EPS cycle as it passes its peak, resulting in increased volatility,” he said.

Read: Does the bond market have it wrong about inflation?

Earnings season picks up steam this week, with nearly a third of the 30 Dow Jones Industrial Average components and more than 80 S&P 500 companies are expected to report quarterly results. Performance so far this quarter has been strong, with 85% of S&P 500 companies that have reported beating expectations and none providing guidance lower than expectations so far, according to John Butters, senior earnings analyst at FactSet.

Earnings highlights for the week ahead include Netflix Inc. NFLX, +0.14% on Tuesday and Intel Corp. INTC, -0.73% on Thursday.

Earnings Preview: What does a mature streaming service look like? Netflix is about to show us

Oil prices were sliding, with the U.S. benchmark CL00, -5.17% down 3.8% to trade below $69 a barrel after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, agreed on Sunday to a deal that will ease output curbs. Major producers will add 400,000 barrels a day in production each month beginning in August until existing curbs totaling 5.8 million barrels a day are erased later next year.

A busy week of housing data kicks off with the July reading of the National Association of Home Builders index at 10 a.m. Eastern.

Which companies are in focus?

• Robinhood Markets Inc. HOOD, set terms forints initial public offering, in which the California-based retail trading platform could be valued at up to $35.1 billion.
• AutoNation Inc. AN, +1.43% on Monday second-quarter quarter profit and revenue that easily topped expectations, with particular strength in used car sales. Shares were up 0.5%.
• Shares of Five9 Inc. FIVN, +4.10% rose 3.3%, after the announcement of a $14.7 billion all-stock buyout deal by Zoom Video Communications Inc. ZM, over the weekend. Zoom shares slumped 2%.
• Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Tontine Holdings PSTH, -1.55% said Monday that it was abandoning a deal to buy a 10% stake in Universal Music Group, citing regulatory and shareholder concerns. PSTH shares were down 0.7%.
• Cal-Maine Foods Inc. CALM, -3.37%  reported Monday a surprise fiscal fourth-quarter loss and revenue that fell below expectations, with egg sales dropping as the lifting of COVID-19-related restrictions led to less meals prepared at home. Shares were down 0.2%.

What are other markets doing?

• The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, +0.04%, a measure of the currency against a basket of six major rivals, was flat.
• Gold futures GC00, -0.04% were down fractionally trading near $1,814.40 an ounce.
• In European equities, the Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP, -2.61% dropped 2.4%, while London’s FTSE 100 UKX, -2.67% was off 2.3%.
• In Asia, the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, -0.01% fell fractionally, while the Hang Seng Index HSI, -1.84% shed 1.8% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 NIK, -1.25% dropped 1.3%.