By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- European stock futures were drifting lower early Friday, consolidating at the end of a week dominated by growing hopes of a quick end to the pandemic.
In many markets, including Germany, Spain and Italy, the Christmas holiday period has already started. Markets are open for half the day the U.K., France, Poland and the Benelux countries, however.
By 2:30 AM ET (0730 GMT), FTSE 100 futures were down 21 points, or 0.3%, while French CAC 40 futures were down 9.5 points, or 0.1%.
That was due largely to a negative handover from Asia, where the country's zero-tolerance policy of Covid-19 has already caused one of its tightest lockdowns in the last 18 months, in the city of Xi'an. Chinese authorities are eager to ensure that the staging of the Beijing Winter Olympics proceeds as planned early in the new year.
However, countries which have accepted the inevitability of community spread have been cheered by signs that the new dominant strain, Omicron, is significantly less dangerous than all those which have gone before it. U.K. health authorities, citing data from a population relatively well protected by vaccination and past illness, that Omicron is 70% less likely to cause a stay in hospital.
In addition, fresh data from South Africa, where the strain was first idenitified. suggest that the wave of Omicron infection may also be shorter than previous ones. The 7-day average for new infections there is already down 25% from its peak on Deember 16th. The peak came only three weeks after Omicron was first detected.
In corporate news, U.K. engineering group Babcock International (LON:BAB) said earlier it has completed the sale of its U.K. power business for 50 million pounds, whiie while Carmat (PA:ALCAR), a French maker of heart implants, will be in focus later after saying it had identified the source of a problem with its prostheses, a first step on the way to resuming their use in the U.S. Carmat stock has fallen nearly 40% from its peak earlier this year.
In foreign exchange markets, the euro was directionless at $1.1322.