Commenting that the latest Covid-19 variant discovered this week could stall inflation and signal looser monetary policy, Dan Boardman-Weston, CIO at BRI Wealth Management, said: “Equity markets are sharply lower this morning after the emergence of a new covid variant in southern Africa. The new variant appears to have the potential to be more transmissible and to evade vaccines but it’s important to emphasise that nobody is completely sure about this yet. The markets are being led lower by covid sensitive stocks in the travel, leisure and oil sector with the only positive performers being technology companies that benefit from covid lockdowns. We think it’s too soon to quantify the likely impact of this new variant but markets have had a very strong run over the last 12 months and so it is no surprise to see a reaction like this. It’s important to note that if this is going to take the world backwards from a covid perspective then it’s likely that inflation will abate and monetary policy will stay looser for a long time which is likely to be a positive for markets in the medium term.”
