Wall Street will be closed on Thursday for the U.S. Thanksgiving Holiday and trading is likely to be very thin for Black Friday, when the festive shopping season kicks off in earnest.

Investor appetite for risky assets appeared dented after the Chinese government introduced further restrictions within the world’s second-biggest economy in the wake of more COVID-19 outbreaks.

Worries about waning demand from the globe’s dominant manufacturer pushed down prices of industrial metals like copper
HG00,
-1.46%,
and saw crude-oil futures
CL.1,
-0.76%
tumble to their lowest levels since January.

“Financial markets have caught a cold amid worries that mounting COVID cases in China and a fresh tightening of restrictions will send a fresh shiver through manufacturing output and push down demand for raw materials,” said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Evidence of risk aversion and a scramble for perceived havens could be seen in forex and bonds, where the dollar index
DXY,
+0.88%
bounced following a recent slide to gain 0.8% and the 10-year Treasury yield
TMUBMUSD10Y,
3.816%,
which moves in the opposite direction to prices, dipped nearly 3 basis points to 3.786%.

Also not helping sentiment, one of the two largest U.S. railway unions rejected a White House-brokered labor agreement, raising the specter of a potential strike by early December.

“After a key vote, it is looking less likely that we won’t see some possible work stoppages, which could prove to be terrible for economic activity and prove to be inflationary. If a deal is not reached early next month the hit to the economy could be over $2 billion a day,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, in a note.

Helping support Treasurys, and possibly ameliorating declines in stocks, were comments from Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, who on Saturday said he was minded to slow the pace of interest rate increases and saw a possible top, or terminal rate, of 5% for this cycle.

San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly is due to speak about inflation on Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern. The Fed will release on Wednesday at 2 p.m. the minutes of its most recent rate-setting meeting.

It’s a thin week for U.S. economic data, with much of it shoehorned into Wednesday, ahead of Thanksgiving the next day and no reports scheduled for Black Friday either.

Companies in focus

• Shares of Walt Disney Co.
  DIS,
  +4.98%
  rose 6.9%, leading Dow gainers and cushioning the blue-chip index, after the entertainment giant announced Robert Iger’s return as chief executive.

• Imago BioSciences Inc.
  IMGO,
  +104.74%
  shares soared 104.9%, after the biopharmaceutical company developing treatments for myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) and other bone marrow diseases announced an agreement to be acquired by Merck & Co. Inc.
  MRK,
  +1.16%
  in a cash deal with a equity value of $1.35 billion.