Investing.com - The four major market indexes on Wall Street declined on Thursday, reversing recent gains, as news about the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats being expelled from the U.S. dampened investor optimism.
The Dow was at 19826.60, down 7.08 points.
The Nasdaq was down at 5425.43, a drop of 13.06 points.
The S&P 500 and the Russell 2000 were also down in late trading.
The Obama White House is claiming that the diplomats, at locations on the east coast, including Maryland, New York City and Washington D.C.
Obama's team issued a statement on Thursday, claiming the diplomats were responsible for the alleged hacking of the Hillary Clinton campaign's e-mail account, accomplished when campaign Chairman John Podesta followed his IT team's advice and changed his e-mail password in response to a message from a source that was obviously not the computing staff of Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) or G-Mail.
Diplomats have 72 hours to leave the U.S., according to President Obama.
"This data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," said the outgoing president.
House Speaker Paul Ryan was critical of the move. "Russia does not share America's interests," said Ryan (R-WI) "But there have been eight years of failed policy with Russia that have left America weaker in the eyes of the world."
The upper house of parliament in Russia was even more scathing, calling the Obama team's move "the death throes of political corpses."
The cyber-hacking allegation against the Russians has been mocked, repeatedly, by President-elect Donald Trump. "I think we ought to get on with our lives," said Trump. "Nobody knows exactly what's going on."