FTSE 100, Wall Street and oil rally despite worries over Omicron variant – as it happened

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• Wall Street has opened higher
• FTSE 100 index has jumped over 1% so far today
• Jack Dorsey steps down as Twitter CEO
• Travel stocks rise after Friday's tumble
• Oil jumps by 4%... after Asia-Pacific markets dropped on Omicron fears
• What does appearance of Omicron variant mean for the double-vaccinated?

Europe's stock markets have rebounded from their worst slump in over a year.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 up around 1% this morning, with the Travel and Leisure sector jumping by 3% [having tumbled to one-year lows on Friday].

The reports over the weekend that numerous cases of Omicron have already been discovered around the world, suggests it's probably more widespread than people think already. So we will likely soon learn whether these patients present with more severe illness and we'll also learn of their vaccination status before any official study is out.

The only caveat would be that until elderly patients have been exposed in enough scale we won't be able to rule out the more negative scenarios.

One very significant one is that ALL travellers coming into (or back to) the UK will have to self isolate until they get a negative PCR test. This sort of thing will dramatically reduce travel, especially short business trips. Overnight Japan have effectively banned ALL foreign visitors.

I appreciate it's dangerous to be positive on Covid at the moment but you only have to look at the UK for signs that boosters are doing a great job. Cases in the elderly population continue to collapse as the roll out progresses well and overall deaths have dropped nearly 20% over the last week to 121 (7-day average) - a tenth of where they were at the peak even though cases have recently been 80-90% of their peak levels. If Europe are just lagging the UK on boosters rather than anything more structural, most countries should be able to control the current wave all things being equal.