Technology companies led stocks lower on Wall Street on Aug 22nd as markets digested recent gains in equities and on growing expectations the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates.
Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare described the decline as "a somewhat natural consolidation in a thinly traded market" after the market's advance in recent days.
O'Hare also cited relatively good U.S. service sector data for August that could reduce the likelihood of a larger rate cut by half a percentage point at the Fed's September meeting.
Futures markets are pricing in a quarter-point cut.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.4 percent to 40,712.78 points.
The broad-based S&P 500 lost 0.9 percent to 5,570.64, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index slumped 1.7 percent to 17,619.35.
Evidence of a slowdown in the U.S. labor market, as well as declining inflation, boosted expectations of a Fed rate cut.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is due to deliver a speech on August 23 at a meeting of central bankers in Wyoming. | BGNES
