S&P 500 falls amid Omicron and inflation concerns

The S&P 500 fell 0.7 percent on Thursday after three consecutive days of gains.

Dr Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Tuesday that the Omicron variant may extend the pandemic phase of COVID-19.

Gottlieb said that the US is still likely to “go from a pandemic into a more endemic phase” but later.

Greg Bassuk, chief executive officer of AXS Investments, said that “Covid is still the investor narrative” but “a lot of eyes are shifting to economic data to gauge where the Fed might be going in terms of potentially faster and greater extent of tapering”.

“While growth and labor markets have provided reasons to be optimistic about the economy, inflation is also running hot and sits at a 30-year high,” UBS wrote in a recent note to clients.

Trade credit insurer Euler Hermes said in a report published Thursday that global supply chain disruptions may continue until the second half of next year.

Anthony Scaramucci, founder and managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, said that inflation is “a transitory aftermath of the crisis” and will abate once supply chain constraints ease.