Dow futures tumble 800 points on fears over new COVID variant detected in South Africa

How are stock-index futures trading?

• S&P 500 futures ES00, -1.76% fell 84 points, or 1.8%, to 4,615
• Dow Jones Industrial Average futures YM00, -2.25% slumped 789 points, or 2.2%, to 34960
• Nasdaq-100 futures NQ00, -1.02% fell 1.2%, or 193 points, to 16,173

On Wednesday, the Dow industrials DJIA, -0.03% fell 9.42 points to finish nearly flat at 35,804.38. The S&P 500 SPX, +0.23% slipped 0.2% to close at 4,701.46, just 0.1% below its Nov. 18 record close of 4,704.54, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.44% rose 0.4% to 15,84.23.

What’s driving the market?

The discovery of the new COVID variant was announced on Friday by South Africa’s health minister Joe Phaahla. He said scientists were concerned because of its high number of mutations and the dramatic spike in infections the country had seen over the past four or five days.

Speaking at an online press conference, he said the variant, known as B.1.1.529 and expected to be called the Nu variant, had also been detected in Botswana and Hong Kong in travelers who had visited South Africa, he said. The World Health Organization’s technical working group is holding an emergency meeting to assess the variant, as scientists aren’t sure whether is more deadly or just more contagious.

“The one bull in the China shop that could truly derail the global recovery has always been a new strain of Covid-19 that swept the world and caused the reimposition of mass social retractions,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst, at OANDA, in a note. “All we know so far is the B.1.1.529 is heavily mutated but markets are taking no chances.”

After new cases appeared to stabilize at 200 a day, South Africa reported more than 1,200 on Wednesday and 2,465 on Thursday. Scientists and health officials are concerned that such a highly mutating variant could escape vaccines. The U.K. government is banning flights from the country along with five other African nations, effective Friday.

As stock futures tumbled and stocks in Asia slumped, with the Nikkei 225 index NIK, -2.53% falling an outsize 2.5%, investors flocked to perceived safer assets such as gold GC00, +1.58% GCZ21, +1.58%, which jumped $25 to $1,810.50, as well as the Japanese yen USDJPY, -1.32% and government bonds. The yield TMUBMUSD10Y, 1.516% on the 10-year U.S. Treasury slid 12 basis points to 1.52%.

U.S. crude prices CL00, -6.57% CLF22, -6.57% slumped 6% to $73.62 a barrel on perceived fears of falling demand amid the new variant.

“At this stage very little is known. Mutations are often less severe so we shouldn’t jump to conclusions but there is clearly a lot of concern about this one. Also South Africa is one of the world leaders in sequencing so we are more likely to see this sort of news originate from there than many countries. Suffice to say at this stage no one in markets will have any idea which way this will go,” Deutsche Bank strategists, led by Jim Reid, told clients in a note.

Investors are returning from the Thanksgiving Day break to a shortened session for U.S. markets, which is often accompanied by thinner volumes as traders often wait until Monday to return. There is no economic data on the calendar for Friday. But the week had been simmering with concerns about rising COVID cases in Europe and new restrictions.

Fear of a new variant was overshadowing the Black Friday shopping day, which puts the focus on retailers as consumers shop for bargains.

Read: Facing the biggest inflation surge in 30 years, shoppers expect to spend a lot more this holiday season