Australia Market falls on Omicron woes, eyes on Fed decision

The Australian share market finished session lower on Wednesday, 15 December 2021, following the broadly negative cues overnight from Wall Street, on caution ahead of outcome of the U.S. Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting later in the day.

Meanwhile, selloff pressure mounted on concerns about rapid spread of the Omicron variant after New South Wales reported 1,360 new cases and one death on Tuesday, with a total on 110 Omicron cases. Victoria also reported 1,405 new cases and three deaths, with about seven suspected Omicron cases.

The World Health Organization on Tuesday warned the new Covid omicron variant is spreading faster than any previous strain, saying that the variant is probably present in most countries of the world.

At closing bell, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 was down 51.30 points, or 0.7%, to 7,327.08. The broader All Ordinaries index sank 62.04 points, or 0.81%, to 7,636.24.

The top performing stocks in this index were VIRGIN MONEY UK PLC and ALUMINA, up 4.05% and 3.88% respectively. The bottom performing stocks in this index were POINTSBET HOLDINGS and POLYNOVO, down 7.58% and 7.32% respectively.

Total 10 of 11 sectors ended lower along with the S&P/ASX 200 Index. Utilities was the best performing sector, gaining +0.31%, while information technology was the worst performing sector, falling 2.62%, followed by A-REIT (down 1.55%), telecommunication services (down 1.23%), and materials (down 0.86%).

Materials and resources were lower on weak iron ore prices. BHP Group and Fortescue Metals fell 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively. Evolution Mining dropped 5.2%.

Shares of tech players declined on tracking their U.S. peers.Buy-now-pay-later firm Afterpay lost 3.3%.

ECONOMIC NEWS: Australia Westpac Consumer Confidence Stays In Positive Territory- Australia consumer confidence held in positive territory in November, the latest survey from Westpac Bank revealed on Wednesday as its index for sentiment slipped 1.0 percent to a score of 104.3 - remaining above 100 and in the green. There was a clear difference in responses between the states hit hardest by recent Delta outbreaks and the rest of Australia. While high vaccination rates have allowed the 'Delta states' to reopen, there appears to be a heightened sensitivity to virus developments in those states where there is likely more concern about the newly emerging Omicron strain and the continued circulation of COVID locally. CURRENCY NEWS: The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 96.448, dropping back a little from levels around 96.5 earlier. The Australian dollar rose to $0.7123.

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