Instability in Iraq sent the markets down to a sharply lower close with the Dow plummeting 109 points to 16,734. Nasdaq tumbled 34 points to 4,297.

On the upside

Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) chief operating officer Ali Rowghani resigned as Twitter has failed to expand its user base at an acceptable pace.

BlackBerry (Nasdaq: BBRY) entered a three-year mobile payment agreement with EnStream.

Shares of Nordic American Offshore (NYSE: NAO) climbed on its first trading day.

On the downside

Stillwater Mining (NYSE: SWC) cited surging precious metals prices for maintaining its mining operations rather than accelerating plans.

Rising crude oil price weighed down shares of American Airlines Group (Nasdaq: AAL), Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) and JetBlue Airways (Nasdaq: JBLU.

Profit taking weighed down share of Applied Micro Circuits (Nasdaq: AMCC).

In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of more than 4 to 3 on the NYSE and by nearly 2 to 1 on Nasdaq. The broader S&P 500 dropped 13 points to 1930. Bitcoin tumbled $47.97 or 8.09% to $593.00.