By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The S&P 500 was flat Wednesday, as investors appeared to hit pause on cyclical sectors of the market, with financials and energy leading the broader market lower.

They fell 0.12%. Or 161 points. Nasdaq also lost 0.1%.

Oil prices continued to fall more than 1 percent last week. Data showing that the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve had drawn 3.2 million barrels of oil last week prompted pressure on energy.

In a further hit to oil prices, the International Energy Agency warned of a “reprieve from the price rally […]due to increasing oil supplies

Valero Energy (NYSE :), APA NASDAQ:), Phillips 66 NYSE : led the lower energy sector.

Financial stocks plunged more than 1% due to pressure from easing Treasury yields and concerns about how new Cooid-19 EU restrictions will impact global economic growth.

Goldman Sachs (NYSE:), State Street (NYSE:), Morgan Stanley (NYSE) were the largest decliners with the latter dropping more than 3%.

Energy and finance are the highest performing sectors in the country, with a 34% increase and 45% respectively.

There was some good news about Covid-19 treatment in the middle of all the panic and doom. Moderna (NASDAQ) submitted a request to FDA to allow its vaccine booster doses. This was for adults at least 18 years old.

The consumer discretionary sector, however, saw gains even in a slump. Target Retailers were weighed.

Target (NYSE) dropped more than 5% after better-than expected quarterly results were offset with concerns about margins pressures ahead by Chief Executive Brian Cornell’s statement that the retailer would not pass on rising costs to consumers.

Lowe’s  (NYSE:) was marginally higher after raising its full-year guidance following quarterly results that beat on both the top and bottom lines.

TJX Inc. (NYSE : ) reported third-quarter results which exceeded Wall Street’s expectations. Same-store sales increased 14%, exceeding the expected 3% growth.

Visa (NYSE:), another major Dow component, plunged over 5% in other areas after Amazon announced it would no longer accept payment made using Visa credit card holders in the UK.

A steady strength in large tech also helped keep the losses from the wider market in check.

Meta, formerly Facebook (NASDAQ:), Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:) were sightly lower, while Amazon (NASDAQ:),  Microsoft  (NASDAQ:) and Apple (NASDAQ:) were higher.

On the economic front, October housing starts fell 0.7% month-over-month to a 1.52 million units, missing economists’ estimates got a rise to 1.576 million.

“We continue to blame the weakness on supply constraints,” Jefferies said in a note. “Demand for housing has improved in recent months corroborated most recently by yesterday’s home builder sentiment index which rose to its highest level since May.”