By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Zoom Video stock (NASDAQ:ZM) rose 3% on Monday on renewed interest in the company as fears over the Omicron variant gather strength and countries bring back limits on the movement of people and business activities.
The company behind the popular video conferencing app was one of the biggest winners of the pandemic last year as both corporates and individuals used it to connect with each other, conduct official meetings and online studies within the confines of homes.
However, as economies reopened and corporates called staff back to offices, the stock has struggled. It has more than halved since touching a high of $451.70 on February 16.
Labelled "of concern" by the World Health Organization, Omicron has been reported in more than 80 countries, and now dominates the Delta variant in many nations. Omicron, which studies show to have a far higher reproduction rate than Delta, has forced several countries to reimpose restrictions on the movement of people and on business activity.
The U.K. has reported more than 90,000 new cases daily for the last three days, a record. Several states in the U.S. are also reporting an uptick in numbers.
Several firms on Wall Street and those in Silicon Valley have delayed return to office. Among the prominent ones are Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Ford and Uber (NYSE:UBER).