Markets mixed amid Fed taper talk and COVID-19 surge

Markets were mixed on Thursday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.1 percent, snapping a two-day losing streak.

However, elsewhere, the STOXX Europe 600 tumbled 1.5 percent and the Nikei 225 fell 1.1 percent.

Stocks have been under pressure since the release of minutes of the Federal Reserve's July monetary meeting on Wednesday showed that the central bank has started considering tapering its monthly bond purchases before the year-end.

And that as the US continues to reel from COVID-19, with infections up 47 percent over the last two weeks and deaths up 97 percent.

Goldman Sachs cut its US economic growth forecast for the current quarter to 5.5 percent from 9 percent, with chief economist Jan Hatzius saying: “The impact of the delta variant on growth and inflation is proving to be somewhat larger than we expected.”