The decline followed two days of gains, driven by easing concerns about trade tensions between the United States and China.
On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Russia of imminent military action in Syria, declaring missiles "will be coming."
The rising tensions sent oil prices surging, boosting energy stocks <.SPNY> 1 percent. But the risk-off sentiment weighed on Treasury yields
"There's general nervousness about what might happen with any strikes and the potential escalation of tensions with Russia," said Anwiti Bahuguna, senior portfolio manager at Columbia Threadneedle Investments in Boston.
The major Wall Street indexes edged even lower after minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee showed concern among a few of its members that rising inflation might require a faster pace of interest rate hikes than anticipated.
Members of the Federal Reserve voted unanimously to raise borrowing costs by a quarter percentage point and expressed confidence that the economy would strengthen and inflation would rise in coming months.
"The minutes were modestly negative," said John Carey, portfolio manager at Amundi Pioneer Asset Management in Boston. "People had been speculating that due to all the turbulence in the market because of geopolitical uncertainties that the Fed might consider pausing or slowing down the interest rate increases."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> fell 218.55 points, or 0.9 percent, to 24,189.45, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 14.68 points, or 0.55 percent, to 2,642.19 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 25.28 points, or 0.36 percent, to 7,069.03.
Investors said they are looking to earnings season to provide a sustained boost to U.S. stocks. Banks JPMorgan Chase & Co (>> JP Morgan Chase & Company), Citigroup Inc and Wells Fargo will report quarterly results on Friday.
Analysts expect quarterly profits for S&P 500 companies to rise 18.5 percent from a year ago, which would be the biggest gain in seven years, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Industrial distributor Fastenal fell 6.2 percent after its earnings missed expectations. The stock was the biggest decliner on the S&P, followed by industry peer WW Grainger's (>> Grainger (WW)) 4.4 percent drop.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.03-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.06-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted six new 52-week highs and two new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 46 new highs and 27 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.04 billion shares, compared with the 7.29 billion-share average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
(Additional reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Dan Grebler)
By April Joyner
