Wall Street falls on taper worries, Kabul explosion By Reuters

By Devik Jain

(Reuters) – Major Wall Street indices fell to session lows on Thursday amid fears of a faster reduction in the US Federal Reserve’s bond buying program, with traders also reporting an explosion at Kabul for a peak in volatility.

After opening almost flat, all three major indices fell sharply.

A suspected suicide bombing exploded outside Kabul airport, killing at least 13 people, including children.

“Geopolitics usually don’t have too much of an impact on the market, but when a story like this comes out it tends to move a bit,” said Randy Frederick, managing director of trading and derivatives at Schwab. Center for Financial Research.

Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman of St. Louis, James Bullard, told CNBC that the Fed is “rallying” around a plan to start cutting its $ 120 billion in monthly purchases of bonds and seemed skeptical that inflation will moderate in 2022.

While many investors expect a possible slowdown in bond buying, they will be looking for clues as to when and how the US central bank will begin to decline when Fed chief Jerome Powell speaks at the event. of the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on Friday.

“This is the time when there is a rebound and a strength in the economy,” said Brian Vendig, president, MJP Wealth Advisors in Westport, Connecticut.

“So taking action now is actually a good thing because we know there’s still a ripple effect that’s going to happen next year.”

U.S. stocks have hit a series of all-time highs in recent sessions, driven by a stronger-than-expected earnings season and positive news about COVID-19 vaccinations.

However, strategists predicted that the benchmark would end the year at 4,500 points, essentially unchanged, expecting the economic recovery as well as earnings growth to falter.

Data showed the U.S. economy grew a little faster than initially thought in the second quarter, in a second estimate of GDP growth, while weekly jobless claims rose 4,000 to 353 000 seasonally adjusted for the week ended August 21.

At 10:56 a.m. ET, the index was down 95.65 points, or 0.27%, to 35,309.85, the S&P 500 was down 20.34 points, or 0.45%, to 4 475.85, and the index was down 68.33 points, or 0.45%, to 14,973.53.

Discount retailers Societe Generale Dollar (NYSE 🙂 and Dollar Tree Inc (NASDAQ 🙂 slipped 5.3% and 11.2%, respectively, after warning of earnings hit by rising transportation costs.

NetApp Inc (NASDAQ 🙂 rose 5.6% as brokerage firms raised their price targets on shares of the cloud data service provider after bullish first quarter results and better-than-expected 2022 earnings outlook .