Wall street is trying to shake-off almost a week of lacklustre performance as Washington’s budgetary issues contribute to investor uncertainty. The Dow and S&P 500 have closed lower on every single day since they touched record highs last week, hot on the heels of the Federal Reserve’s announcement that it would not be tapering the pace of its bond purchasing just yet. The Nasdaq, which tends to perform better when the other two are falling, registered a slight rise.
The S&P Case-Shiller Index revealed an upward trend in house prices paused in July throughout 20 major city centers. The market seems to have responded to the hike in interest rates that was experienced in the spring. Bucking the housing trend, Lennar was shown to have sold more homes at a higher price and rival KB Home was also shown to have bested all forecasts. Shares in both of these companies rose, along with other firms directly or indirectly related to home-building.
All may be looking good in the world of property development but consumers on the ground are showing signs of worry regarding higher interest rates. Consumer confidence came back slightly lower this month, with retail shoppers seemingly concerned about the labour market as well.
Applied Materials announced a merger with Toyko Electron worth over 9 billion. Both companies produce chipsets and a merger of this size seems geared towards taking advantage of the explosion in demand for smartphone and tablet processors. Shares in Applied material spiked to five year highs off the back of the news.
Twitter is rumoured to be looking to place its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. An insider has revealed that the company is “leaning” towards the NYSE. Conflicting rumours abound, with certain sources holding that a decision has been made and the NYSW and NASDAQ having come out to say that this is not the case.
PUT trades for binary traders, and Short positions for Forex traders are continuing to look attractive today as the EUR/USD currency pair appears to have entered a downtrend. Longer intraday time frames are recommended to avoid being caught out by volatility, however, the patient investor will benefit more for holding this positions over the month.
