By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The S&P 500 turned negative Wednesday, as investor sentiment was soured by fresh fears about the Omicron coronavirus variant after the U.S. reported its first case of the new strain. 

However, the intraday drop was less than 1% and it fell 0.26 percent. This fell to 0.43% (148 points), and Nasdaq dropped 1.1%.

Officials from the U.S. Health Department confirmed Wednesday that California was the site of the first known case of Omicron-Covid-19. This news caused a lot of anxiety, as the so-called fear indicator turned positive. It triggered selling on the wider market, and countered positive data from the labor market.  

The November growth was 534,000, which is less than October’s 570,000 but still higher than expectations of 525,000.

The Federal Reserve has increased expectations of bond tapering by releasing better-than-expected employment data days ahead of Friday’s nonfarm payrolls.

Jerome Powell, Fed Chair continued testimony on Capitol Hill on Day 2. He reiterated the need to speed up the taper of bond purchases at December’s meeting but said that it was not necessary for markets to experience disruption by faster taper.

Investor sentiment remains skeptish despite the recovery in the wider market. The move to the upside was led by utilities which is a traditionally defensive part of the market.

AES Corporation (NYSE :). Alliant Energy WEC Energy and (NASDAQ:) were some of the largest gainers.

Another boost for utilities which serve as a bond proxy was that treasury yields lost some gains after their intraday surge. The 10-year U.S Treasury yields fell further below 1.5%.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ :), a pharmaceutical company that reported an encouraging update on its middle-stage focal glomerular disorder study, helped push health care stock prices higher.

Moderna (NASDAQ:), meanwhile, slumped more than 11% after losing an appeal against a court ruling on patents – used in the making of its Covid-19 vaccine – held by Arbutus Biopharma (NASDAQ:). Arbutus jumped 36%, though it was still well above its session highs. 

In energy, Exxon Mobil The NYSE: was the focus of attention after an oil major predicted a doubling earnings and cashflow by 2027. This is in addition to plans for lower capital expenditure.

In tech, Apple (NASDAQ:) erased its intraday gains as the broader market reversed. As Wall Street analysts highlighted signs of improvement in supply chain pressures, Apple was up over 1% intraday. This could have helped the tech company roll out its latest iPhones.

UBS predicts Apple will sell 80 million iPhones this December, as a result of the improved wait time for iPhones. This is compared to 82 million iPhones last year.

Twitter (NYSE:) meanwhile dropped more than 2% as Cathie Wood disclosed that ARK bought 1.1 Million shares of the social networking company on Tuesday. The news was accompanied by optimism about the future prospects of the company, which is now under the new Chief Executive Parag.