European stocks fall to 7-week low on fears over vaccines efficacy

European stocks fell on Tuesday, and hit a 7-week low, due to renewed sell-off wave amid fears about the effectiveness of the Covid vaccines against the new coronavirus variant Omicron, and stocks are on track for a monthly loss due to the impact of the new variant and the escalating inflationary pressures on the European Central Bank..

The Stoxx Europe 600 index fell more than 1.6% as of 10:52 GMT, and hit the lowest since October 13 at 459.54 points, after it closed higher by 0.7% yesterday.

The traveling sector saw the largest loss in Europe today, with a drop of over 3%, following the negative news about the coronavirus variant.

Moderna CEO Stephan Bancel said that existing vaccines could be be less effective against the new variant Omicron as than with Delta.

South Africa detected the omicron variant last week, and countries around the world have rushed to tighten border closures, despite the speed of many countries’ response, cases of Omicron have been reported in many countries, such as the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and many more.

The World Health Organization said on Monday that Omicron poses a very high risk, with unprecedented number of mutations, to suggest an emerging risk to global public health.

The Stoxx index lost 3.0% so far during November, to head for the second monthly loss in 3 months, due to the impact of the new variant and the escalating inflationary pressures on the European Central Bank..

S&P 500 futures fell 1.5% today ahead of Wall Street's opening, after the index closed higher by 1.3% due to fears over Omicron.

Back to Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 index fell 1.5%, France's CAC 40 fell 1.4%, and Germany's DAX index fell 1.7%, while the UK's FTSE 100 fell 1.1%.