US S&P 500, Nasdaq retreats from record highs

The US stocks wobbled on Thursday, 26 August 2021, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both retreating from record highs, as investors stayed quite wary of making significant moves amid fear of escalating geopolitical tensions after explosions in Afghanistan with reports of US military and Afghan civilian casualties.

Sentiment was also dampened amid caution ahead of comments from Fed officials at the annual Jackson Hole symposium on Friday that may provide more clues about its approach to paring stimulus after comments from three of the US Federal Reserve's non-voting regional Presidents -Esther George, Robert Kaplan and James Bullard -urging the central bank to start tapering its asset purchase program.

At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index declined 192.38 points, or 0.54%, to 35,213.12. The S&P 500 index dropped 26.19 points, or 0.58%, to 4,470. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index was down 96.05 points, or 0.64%, to 14,945.81.

Total 10 of 11 S&P500 sectors declined, while remaining sector closed up. Energy (down 1.5%) sector was worst performer as crude oil fell, followed by consumer discretionary (down 0.73%), communication services (down 0.73%), materials (down 0.68%), and information technology (down 0.62%) sectors.

Total volume turnover on U.S. exchanges was 7.07 billion shares, down from previous session volume of 7.35 billion shares. In the NYSE exchange, 838 issues advanced, 2454 issues declined, and 146 issues closed unchanged. In the NASDAQ, 1517 issues advanced, 2829 issues declined, and 206 issues unchanged.

Investors were awaiting comments from Fed officials at the annual Jackson Hole symposium on Friday for clues whether or not central bankers will detail their plans for tapering monetary stimulus. President of the St. Louis Fed James Bullard's commented that he is of the view that the central bank should start tapering bond purchases in the fall and finish the process by the first quarter of next financial year. Meanwhile, the Kansas City Federal Reserve President George said the Fed should start trimming its monthly bond purchases "sooner rather than later" even though the delta variant poses a risk to the US economic outlook.

Among individual stocks, shares of Salesforce.com rose by 2.7% after strong June quarter earnings. But shares of discount retailer Dollar Tree shed 12.1% as rising freight costs hit its profit forecasts. The Dow Jones index fell by 192 points or

ECONOMIC NEWS: The Labor Department released U.S. unemployment data on Thursday showing that initial jobless claims inched up to 353,000 in the week ended 21 August 2021, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week's revised level of 349,000.

Meanwhile, a report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis stated that the US economy advanced an annualized 6.6% on quarter in the second quarter, higher than an earlier estimate of 6.5%.

Among Indian ADR, INFOSYS fell 1.33% to $23.66, Vedanta dropped 0.64% to $15.47, HDFC Bank declined 1.57% to $77.25, Tata Motors decreased 1.41% to $18.90. Wipro fell 1.1% to $9.00, Dr Reddys Labs fell 1.39% to $60.19, and ICICI Bank fell 0.58% to $18.74. WNS Holdings was down 1.46% to $81.84.

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