US Shares Slip Back From Session Highs

Receding Omicron-worries, signs of a bullish economy and positive seasonality are among bullish factors helping the shares market sentiment.

The S&P 500 is trading flat on Tuesday following Monday’s stunning 1.4% surge, with the index falling back from earlier session record highs to the north territory of the 4800 level.

The index is now nearly 6.0% up versus last Monday’s lows and with three and a half sessions left to go of the month, is on course to post a monthly gain of more than 5.0%. If the index was to close out the year at current levels, that would translate into gains of about 27%.

Traders have been recognized a cocktail of positive moves behind the rally seen in equity markets this week. In the first place, concerns about the impact of the Omicron Covid-19 variant have eased substantially since last week as it becomes clear that the new variant is far milder than any prior variants and after new pills were approved in the US that will substantially lower COVID mortality.

Secondly, traders remain upbeat at the prospect for continued earnings growth in 2022 amid signs of underlying strength in the US economy.

Traders were passing around a bullish report from Mastercard which had been released on Sunday and showed a very strong holiday shopping season in the US, sales were up 8.5% YoY between 1 November to 24 December, easing fears that the fast-spreading Omicron variant would hurt the US economic growth.