Wall Street opens slightly lower amid North Korea concerns

US stock indices opened modestly lower on Friday, heading for the second daily loss in a row as risk aversion grows in the markets, due to the resurface of US-North Korea tensions, while Apple's tumble dragged tech stocks lower. 

As of 15:00 GMT, Dow Jones lost 0.13%, or 29.43 points to 22,329.80, while Standard and Poor's 500 declined 0.63 points, or 0.03% to 2,499.97. NASDAQ Composite shed 0.15%, or 9.40 points to 6,413.29. 

S&P 500 lost 0.3% yesterday, the first such loss in five sessions, on profit-taking after the index hit record highs earlier this week at 2,508.85. 

Tensions flared anew between the United States and North Korea, especially with the talk war between US president Donald Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong-un. 

Kim Jong said that North Korea will undertake the highest levels of countermeasures in history against the United States in response to the US president's threat to "totally destroy" North Korea, describing Trump's UN speech as "total unprecedented nonsense", with Trump responding on Twitter that Kim Jong is a madman who doesn't mind killing or starving his own people. 

South Korean media reported that North Korea's foreign affairs minister said that his country "will look into deploying an unprecedented Hydrogen test in the Pacific, noting it will be the first North Korean nuclear test outside its borders. 

Most tech stocks fell after Apple's 1.5% tumble, deepening this week's overall losses to 5.5%, and heading for the largest weekly loss in a few months, on concerns about the company's latest iPhones. 

Banking and financials stocks fell for the first time this week, with JPMorgan, City Group, and Morgan Stanley leading the decline, but the stock headed nonetheless for a 2.5% weekly profit on prospects of a Federal Reserve rate hike in December.