Live by the euro-zone headline, die by the euro-zone headline.

You may have noticed the stock market getting knocked lower all of a sudden. This seems to be what's doing it: Fitch put out a note a few minutes ago saying its credit ratings for US banks could be at risk if the euro zone goes kablooey.

As with the Rosengren comments, this should only be shocking to infants and shut-ins, but it is also apparently knocking stock traders/robots for a loop, too.

The Dow is down about 115 points now. The S&P is down 1%, led by the financials, down 1.6%, the worst performing sector in the market.

Here's the full Fitch release:

U.S. banks have manageable direct exposures to the stressed European markets (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain), but further contagion poses a serious risk, according to a Fitch Ratings report.

Fitch believes that unless the Eurozone debt crisis is resolved in a timely and orderly manner, the broad credit outlook for the U.S. banking industry could worsen. Fitch's current outlook for the industry is stable, reflecting improved fundamentals at most banks combined with ratings lower than at pre-crisis levels. However, risks of a negative shock are rising and could alter this outlook.

U.S. banks have reduced direct exposure to stressed European markets considerably over the past year in Fitch's view. Direct exposures appear manageable in the context of banks' capital positions and diverse earnings streams. Public disclosure of direct exposures has generally improved recently but varies from bank to bank.

The full report 'U.S. Banks - European Exposure' is available on the Fitch web site 'www.fitchratings.com'. Specific country exposures for the large U.S. banks are provided in the report.

Some day this war's gonna end. 
source: Dow Jones.