Wall Street Declines as Geopolitical Concerns Outweigh Positive U.S. Economic Data

Wall Street felt the heat as the latest tension between Russia and Ukraine continued to escalate. While stronger U.S. economic data helped stem some losses, U.S. stocks dipped lower on Thursday. Although worries over the conflict had decreased over the past few weeks, Russia’s occupation of areas in south east Ukraine and a possible increase in sanctions by the U.S., left investors in a bearish mood. The markets were subdued following news of the infiltration by Russian troops into Ukraine territory but later recouped after the U.S. Commerce Department reported a better than expected second quarter. According to reports from the Labor Department, unemployment claims also dropped last week by 1,000 to 298,000.
Major Indexes Down

The Dow managed to regain some ground after dropping 100 points in early trading to finish 42.44 points lower at 17,079.57. The S&P 500 shed 0.17 percent, closing at 1,996.74 while the Nasdaq dropped 0.26 percent to 4,557.69. The benchmark S&P index, which hovered around a three-month low in the first week of August, rose for 11 out of 14 sessions and had breached the 2,000 mark the past two days. Following a 2.9 percent drop in the first quarter, second quarter corporate profits rose 6 percent. Tech stocks traded mostly in the negative, which had an impact on the Nasdaq although the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index SOX, +0.30% registered a small gain. Shares of Workday Inc. WDAY, the cloud-based human-resource software company, fell almost 5% to $85.89 after reporting second quarter losses. While shares of HP, Goggle Inc., IBM and Amazon declined, Twitter Inc. TWTR shares bucked the trend, rising almost 3% to $49.43 after it released its Twitter analytics dashboard that indicates the number of people reading a user’s tweets.
Yen Finds Support; Euro Under Pressure

Geopolitical concerns took a toll on the forex markets early Friday with the euro on track to post its second consecutive month of declines. The euro was near a one-year low of $1.3152 while the safe-haven yen firmed. The euro was last trading at a 2 ½ week low at 136.42 yen while the U.S. dollar was well of its recent high of 104.49 and was trading at 103.70 yen. The drop in the single currency helped the dollar index .DXY inch towards its 13-month peak of 82.727 set mid-week and was last at 82.497. The Australian dollar gained strength against a basket of major currencies and was up 0.7 percent this month against the greenback. Gold was 0.53 percent stronger at $1,290.20 an ounce while oil gained 0.76 percent and was last trading at $94.59 a barrel.
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Binary Options Tip

Learning when to stop is essential in binary options trading. This involves setting a realistic profit goal for the day, which ought to be the 5% goal. If your trading account is $500, you ought to stop trading when you’ve made or lost $25, which is 5 percent of your trading account. If you have registered gains of more than 5 percent you have a choice to stop of use only the extra amount to trade with. For example, if you were up 8% on a trade then it would be prudent to set aside 5% and place another trade with the extra 3%. On the other hand, you could stop and use the extra funds for another trading day. Never expect your account to multiply in a single day. Trading all day won’t bring bigger profits, increasing your contract size will. It would be wise to set your 5% goal at the beginning of the month with your opening balance and stick with it.