The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 192.38 points, or 0.54 percent, to 35,213.12. The S&P 500 decreased 26.27 points, or 0.58 percent, to 4,469.92. The Nasdaq Composite Index slid 96.05 points, or 0.64 percent, to 14,945.81.
Ten of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors ended in red, with energy down 1.51 percent, leading the laggards. Real estate rose 0.1 percent, the lone gaining group.
U.S.-listed Chinese companies traded mostly lower with nine of the top 10 stocks by weight in the S&P U.S. Listed China 50 index ending the day on a downbeat note.
Investors are awaiting Jerome Powell's speech as the Fed chief is set to speak on Friday during the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's annual Jackson Hole economic symposium.
"It is almost certain Powell will note the challenges posed by the new variant in his speech, and the need to keep accommodation in place long enough to ensure a full recovery. That said, we will watch for acknowledgement of the risk of a longer period of transitory inflation and the appropriate policy response to inflation," Chris Low, chief economist at FHN Financial, said Thursday in a note.
On the economic front, U.S. initial jobless claims, a rough way to measure layoffs, increased by 4,000 to 353,000 in the week ending Aug. 21, the Department of Labor reported on Thursday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had estimated new claims would total 350,000.
U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an annualized and seasonally adjusted rate of 6.6 percent in the second quarter, according to the "second" estimate released Thursday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It was a slightly faster pace than initially thought, but was lower than the Dow Jones estimate of 6.7 percent.
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