Stocks rallied to start to the week yesterday, with the Dow erasing its losses from last week, as investors shook off fears around the emerging threat of omicron.  Shares linked to the economic reopening gained the most yesterday, including energy, industrials and airlines.  Investors continued to sell tech stocks with relatively high valuations. 

A major shift is underway at the Federal Reserve to begin to remove the central bank’s massive pandemic easing policies and could see them hike rates sooner than is priced in by markets.  Comments by Fed officials suggest the central bank is likely to decide to double the pace of its taper to $30 billion a month at their December meeting next week. Initial discussions could also begin as soon as the December meeting about when to raise interest rates and by how much next year with Fed officials set to submit a fresh round of economic forecasts and projections for the fed funds rate.

Inflation in Europe last month was the highest it has been in over 30 years.  The eurozone saw inflation increase by 5% led higher by energy.  It will be interesting to see what the European Central Bank does at their next meeting knowing the Germans fear inflation the most.