(Reuters) - Wall Street fell on Wednesday, led by losses in financial stocks, on brewing tensions between the United States and Russia over a possible U.S. military action against Syria.
The S&P banks index .SPSY slipped nearly 1 percent. JPMorgan (JPM.N) and Bank of America (BAC.N) fell about 1.2 percent, while Goldman Sachs (GS.N) dropped 1.6 percent.
The U.S. 10-year yields were down at 2.762 percent US10YT=RR after U.S. President Donald Trump declared that missiles “will be coming” and blasted Moscow for standing by Syrian President Bashar Assad. [US/]
Russia had earlier warned that any U.S. missiles fired at Syria over a suspected chemical weapons attack on a rebel enclave would be shot down.
“There is going to be broad-based weakness, although one sector that is likely to outperform will be anything tied to the energy space,” said Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles.
Escalating tension in Syria lifted oil prices to its highest in more than three years. [O/R]
At 9:43 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was down 0.57 percent at 24,269.
The S&P 500 .SPX fell 0.40 percent to 2,646.3 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 0.35 percent to 7,069.38.
On Tuesday, the main U.S. indexes closed up nearly 2 percent after Chinese President Xi Jinping tried to defuse trade tensions with the United States by promising to lower import tariffs.
“With Xi’s comments yesterday
