U.S. stocks fall amid geopolitical tensions

U.S. stocks traded lower in the morning session on Wednesday, as investors looked for safe haven assets amid rising geopolitical tensions.

At midday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 169.29 points, or 0.99 percent, to 16,989.37. The S&P 500 shed 16.67 points, or 0.83 percent, to 2,000.04. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 31.69 points, or 0.65 percent, to 4,859.74.

Wall Street was nervous after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced it successfully carried out its first hydrogen bomb test Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic ties with Iran over the weekend and asked all Iranian diplomats to leave the country within 48 hours.

Analysts said the heightened geopolitical tensions sent traders scurrying from stocks into safe haven assets.

On the economic front, U.S. private sector employment increased by 257,000 jobs from November to December, according to the ADP National Employment Report Wednesday.

The ADP figure is watched closely as a pre-indicator for the non-farm payrolls report due Friday.

Traders were looking to the key December employment data, the first jobs report since the U.S. Federal Reserve's mid-December decision to raise its interest rates.

The Fed is scheduled to release later Wednesday the minutes from its December meeting, when the central bank raised rates for the first time in nearly a decade.

In other economic news, the goods and services deficit was 42.4 billion U.S. dollars in November, down 2.2 billion dollars from the revised level of 44.6 billion dollars in October, according to the U.S. Commerce Department Wednesday.

Meanwhile, investors continued to focus on oil prices amid rising tensions in the Middle East, as crude prices had witnessed big swings recently and traded near multi-year lows. Enditem