a street sign for wall street is seen outside the new york stock exchange nyse in new york city new york us july 19 2021 reutersandrew kellyfile photo new york aug 26 reuters  wall street lost ground on thursday ending a streak of alltime closing highs on concerns over developments in afghanistan while fears of a potential shift in us federal reserve policy prompted a broad but shallow selloff the day before the jackson hole symposium all three major us stock indexes ended the session modestly lower with the sp and the nasdaq notching their first down day in six the selloff firmed after hawkish commentary from dallas fed president robert kaplan and a blast outside the kabul airport in afghanistan helped strengthen the riskoff sentiment read more kaplan who is not currently a voting member of the federal open markets committee said he believes the progress of economic recovery warrants tapering of the feds asset purchases to commence in october or shortly thereafter kaplans remarks followed earlier comments from the st louis fed president james bullard who said that the central bank is coalescing around a plan to begin tapering process read more kaplan’s statements caused a little confusion about the taper timeline but in my opinion the equity markets are focused on geopolitical issues said megan horneman director of portfolio strategy at verdence capital advisors in hunt valley maryland there’s a flight to safety during geopolitical tensions i am surprised the market the market hasn’t fallen more given the fear that it could take focus away from us president joe bidens domestic agenda horneman added the economy grew at a slightly faster pace than originally reported in the second quarter fully recovering its losses from the most abrupt downturn in us history according to the commerce department but jobless claims though still on a downward trajectory ticked higher last week read more for an interactive gdp graphic click here the data did little to move the needle with respect to expectations that the fed is unlikely tip its hand regarding the taper timeline when chairman jerome powell unmutes and delivers his speech at fridays virtual jackson hole symposium we’re going to see a lot of market participants analyze every word powell uses but at the end of the day they will begin tapering horneman said i’m more concerned about the speed at which they taper what are they going to start with that will give us a clearer indication as whether they’re getting more hawkish unofficially the dow jones industrial average dji fell 1912 points or 054 to 352143 the sp 500 spx lost 2627 points or 058 to 446992 and the nasdaq composite ixic dropped 9688 points or 064 to 1494498 discount retailers dollar general corp dgn and dollar tree inc dltro tumbled after warning higher transportation costs will hurt their bottom lines read more coty inc cotyn jumped after the cosmetics firm said it expects to post fullyear sales growth for the first time in three years read more salesforcecom inc crmn hiked its earnings forecast as the shift to a hybrid work model is expected to fuel strong demand sending its shares higher read more netapp inc ntapo surged as brokerages raised their price targets in the wake of the cloud computing firms betterthanexpected 2022 earnings outlook reporting by stephen culp additional reporting by devik jain in bengaluru editing by marguerita choy