Aussie shares fall marginally as investors await impact of Omicron

The Australian share market has closed down 39.6 points or 0.5 per cent as investors keep a close eye on the development of the new Omicron variant.

At the close of trade the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 was down to 7239.7 points, having largely recovered from steep early falls of up to 1.3 per cent.

Despite the looming threat of the new variant, futures markets overseas are pointing towards a positive day of trade on Wall Street.

READ MORE: What we know about Omicron, the new COVID-19 variant

Locally the day's biggest winner was motor vehicle part and accessory distributor Bapcor, which saw a 4.59 per cent rise in share price to $7.07.

Among those counting their losses was Westfield manager Scentre Group (down 3.80 per cent), Webjet (down 2.80 per cent) and property investment firm Vicinity Centres (down 4.78 per cent).

The Aussie dollar is currently buying 71 US cents and one Bitcoin is worth $80,317.

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Investors will now look to two critical political meetings in the next 24 hours to see how Australia will handle the new variant of the virus.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will convene a meeting of National Cabinet tomorrow to work on ensuring there is a "common understanding, common information and common actions" among all states and territories.

Chief Medical Officer Professor Kelly said the gathering of the National Security Committee tonight and National Cabinet tomorrow will be the "crucial moments where those decisions will be made".

Vaccine advisory body ATAGI will also review booster timeframes in light of Omicron.