Morgans AM: Thursday, 19 August 2021

Benchmark US equity markets booked their worst declines in a month, with losses accelerating after the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s late July monetary policy meeting did little to dispel expectations that the central bank could begin tapering their US$120B per month bond buying programme soon - Dow fell -383-points or -1.08% . The broader S&P500 shed -1.07%. Energy (down -2.40%) led all but one of the eleven primary sectors lower (with eight sectors logging decline of over >1%). Consumer Discretionary added +0.15%. The technology-centric Nasdaq lost -0.89%. The small capitalisation Russell 2000 fell 0.84%.