COVID-19 Omicron variant having impact on stock market

The stock market was bleeding red again Tuesday as it reacted to the new COVID-19 Omicron variant.

The TSX fell nearly three per cent over the last five days, while the price of oil came tumbling down almost 15 per cent to its lowest level since August.

Mike Tornopolski, a portfolio manager with PWM Private Wealth in Saskatoon, says the emergence of Omicron has caused a lot of uncertainty in the market.

“The biggest thing with Omicron and the fluctuations in the markets is that a lot of people believe it’s a worse variant of concern than Delta,” Tornopolski said. “Anything involving reopening was definitely very negatively affected, as well as specifically energy over the last few days.”

Despite the current volatility, he doesn’t believe people should be panicking if they see their investments in the red.

“Unless you’re needing that money for an immediate need, something in the next week, the next month, even let’s say the next year, it should be staying invested,” he said. “If you check your statements every minute every day, you can get a little bit of paralysis by analysis.

“Try to take a little bit more of a telescope view at your portfolio rather than a microscope view, and look at it over a greater period of time over months and even years to see how you’re doing.”