Indices ended in red territory Wednesday. Bank of America, Caterpillar and JPMorgan Chase stood out among decliners on the Dow. Choppy trading led to a late-day sell off. Stocks fell following the Federal Reserve’s announcement of the “Operation Twist” strategy. In comments from its two-day meeting, the FOMC said it would reinvest principal payments from its mortgage-backed securities to bolster the housing market. Meanwhile, existing-home sales climbed in August. The National Association of Realtors reported a 7.7 percent increase to a 5.03 million annual rate. Economists expected a lesser rate of 4.75 million. On another note, technology brands such as Hewlett-Packard and Oracle avoided the downswing, rising in the wake of stronger-than-anticipated quarterly results for the database software maker.
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