President Donald Trump opened the door to blacklisting people and entities doing business with North Korea, further tightening the screws on Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs. "The Fed had investors on edge already. The consumer staples index was the biggest decliner, down 0.97 percent drop.Financial stocks have been on a tear in recent days as investors anticipated and then reacted to Fed commentary on rate hikes, which tend to help bank profits.The S&P has risen about 11.7 percent so far this year, helped by strong corporate profits and lingering optimism among some investors that Trump will cut taxes for businesses.This has boosted valuations. The S&P is trading at roughly 17.6 times expected earnings, well above its 10-year average of 14.3, according to Thomson Reuters Datastream. "It's very hard for me to see a tremendous catalyst for the upside, although I also don't see that massive catalyst to create a crack to the downside," said Cantor's Cecchini.Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.35-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.24-to-1 ratio favored decliners.About 5.54 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges on ,compared with the 6.03 billion average for the last 20 sessions.

Source: The Star September 21, 2017 20:48 UTC