Stocks slipped in Paris and Tokyo, inched higher in Seoul and Hong Kong and were nearly unchanged in London.
A day earlier, Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index rose 0.6% to set a record as investor fears ebbed about how badly the omicron variant will hit the economy.
Of course, much is still uncertain about omicron, which seems to spread extremely quickly.
Inflation, meanwhile, is running at a nearly four-decade high in the United States.