Midday Report: US Stocks Pare Morning Losses as Tech Slump Stalls Amid Omicron Spread

US stocks were off session lows after midday Friday as the sell-off in technology heavyweights eased, but the major indices remained down amid a slump in growth stocks exacerbated by concern over the rapid spread of the omicron variant.

The Nasdaq Composite, which fell to an intraday low of 14,960.37, recovered partially to trade little changed at 15,172.43 by the early afternoon. The S&P 500 was down 0.7% to 4,636.80 after dropping as low as 4,600.22 earlier in the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.2% to 35,487.66.

All sectors except real estate were in the red, with energy and financials among the steepest decliners.

The 10-year US Treasury yield fell 3 basis points to 1.39%.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil depreciated $1.32 to $71.06 per barrel.

Recently weak technology stocks such as Crowdstrike CRWD, Snowflake SNOW and Zoom ZM traded in the green.

The current experience of the UK suggests the US services sector in for a "severe hammering" even as it's likely to prove a short one, Pantheon Macroeconomics Chief Economist Ian Shepherdson said in a research note. "Right now, national US Covid cases numbers are steady, but the picture is going to change for the worse, in dramatic fashion, over the next few weeks," he wrote.

In company news, Oracle ORCL is in talks to acquire Cerner (CERN), a provider of health care information technology services, in a deal that could be worth about $30 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Oracle shares were down 5.8%, while Cerner's jumped 12%.

Rivian Automotive RIVN is seeing electric truck orders accelerate, but the company's failure to meet its modest production goal for 2021 weighed on sentiment after it reported a wider-than-expected quarterly loss. Shares slumped 11%.

FedEx FDX shares gained 4.5% after the parcel delivery giant raised earnings guidance for fiscal 2022 and unveiled a new share buyback program after beating second-quarter estimates.

In the metals markets, gold was up 0.4% to $1,805.50 per troy ounce, silver gained 0.2% to $22.53 an ounce and copper was down 0.4% to $4.29 per pound.