US STOCKS slammed by Syrian worries

U.S. stocks were slammed Tuesday by unease over a possible U.S. military strike against Syria, with gold rising to a more-than three-month high and crude closing above $109 a barrel for the first time since February 2012. 

Western powers told the Syrian opposition to expect a strike against President Bashar al-Assad's forces within days. 

Washington said on Monday it believed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was responsible for a chemical weapons attack on civilians last week in what U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called a "moral obscenity." 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 fell more than 1% while the Nasdaq dropped more than 2%. Still, the U.S. indexes remain up between 13% and 19% in 2013. 

In the United States, consumer confidence improved this month, while home prices rose in June on a seasonally adjusted basis. 

Tiffany & Co. reported its second-quarter profit rose to $106.8 million, or 83 cents a share, from $91.8 million, or $72 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose to $925.9 million, from $886.6 million a year earlier, the jewelry company said Tuesday. Analysts had expected earnings of 74 cents a share on revenue of $941.5 million. The company raised its full-year earnings outlook to a range of $3.50 to $3.60 per share, up from $3.43 to $3.53 per share. Meanwhile, shares in the company were 1.04% down. 

Shares of J.C. Penney Co. fell 1.35% after news that activist investor Bill Ackman is selling his stake in the retailer. Bill Ackman, who holds about 18% in the department-store company said late Monday that he would sell all of the 39.1 million shares. Ackman resigned from J.C. Penney’s board earlier this month. 

Shares of Best Buy Co. fell 2.21%. Founder Richard Schulze, the company’s largest shareholder, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission late Monday to sell shares. 

Shares of Facebook were off 4.11% after a regulatory filing late Monday showed Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg sold 176,452 shares on Aug. 22. Sandberg sold the shares at $38.52 each for a total of $6.8 million.

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