After spreading in more than 89 countries, according to the World Health Organization report, the new Omicron mutant is spreading faster than the Delta strain. Accordingly, European countries began to impose new measures and restrictions on movement, as the Netherlands announced the imposition of a comprehensive closure during the end of the year holiday, while Germany announced the largest economy.

In Europe, stricter measures do not reach the stage of comprehensive closure, and Johnson is seeking to obtain a vote to limit the spread of the virus in Britain, in addition to many European countries such as France, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Belgium.

In the United States of America, the matter has not yet gone out of urging Americans to receive booster doses of vaccines before traveling during the holidays and to put masks permanently, especially after New York recorded the highest daily number of HIV infections during the weekend.

All these fears of the rapid spread of the virus, especially with the approach of the annual holidays and travel, pushed the VIX index, which reflects the state of anxiety and fear in the markets, to decline by more than 24% with the opening of the markets today, Monday, to trade at 26.75 levels.

Crude prices fall by more than 3% this morning, as Brent crude is trading at levels of $71.18 a barrel, down by about 3.18%, while American crude (NYMEX) is trading at levels of $68.30 a barrel, down by 3.61%.

The Japanese markets were among the worst affected at the end of the trading session of the opening session of the week, affected by the decline of the US futures, as the Nikkei index lost more than 2%, or about 607 points, at the close at 27.937 levels. US futures contracts, in turn, fall before the opening, as the Dow Jones futures index loses more than 500 points, while the Nasdaq index drops by more than 2%.

Currency markets are in weak trading since the opening of the Asian markets due to the absence of economic data affecting the market declines this week, with the exception of the PCE index concerned with measuring inflation in the United States of America and some dispersed data in a week.

It is expected that it will be the last week of the current year 2021 technically if we consider that The Christmas holiday will start early Friday, the 24th of December, and therefore liquidity is expected to decline. The general index of the US dollar is trading at 96.51 levels, down by 0.10%, with the opening of the European markets, while the yellow metal is trying to recover the levels of 1800 dollars per ounce.

The Turkish lira, on the other hand, continues to decline in the opening session and is trading at 16.87 levels, after Turkish President Erdogan pledged this morning to continue reducing interest rates, pointing to the prohibition of Islamic usury as a basis for his policy, bringing the lira’s losses to more than 57% so far since the beginning of the year, including 37% in Only the last 30 days.