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Indices rose Friday, with the S&P closing at 1,065, a 1.7% increase. The DIJA rose by 165 points or 1.7%, ending at 10,561. The Nasdaq Composite also rose by 1.7% that Friday.

Some of our most popular technology stocks, however, have announced important 3rd quarter reports. Intel estimated sales of $11 billion for the third quarter rather than its previous estimate of $11.2 to $12 billion in sales. HP and Dell are both vying over 3Par, a company offering customized storage solutions for mid to large-size companies.

The Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke vowed Friday to do all he can to prevent deflation in the US.
The dollar fell along with oil prices, which ended Tuesday at $72.39 a barrel. Gold ended at $1,233.40 an ounce. Wheat prices continue to rise after Russia declared a moratorium on wheat due to a drought.

The US unemployment rate remained at 9.5% this month, although the private sector added 71,000 jobs.

Home sales in the US sunk 27% in July, to their lowest level in 15 years.

World Markets
China reported a fall in growth in July for the first time in 16 months. This week China is expected to release its GDP growth for the 2nd quarter as well as balance of trade reports, which will give analysts information on future growth and investment or if the fall is a trend. India will also release growth figures. Analysts expect 8% growth to be announced. Analysts predict that India will catch up more to China in terms of growth rate this year.

The European Central Bank will unveil latest interest-rate decision on Thursday. It is likely to leave the rate unchanged, a confirmation that continue with relaxed lending policies until the end of the year.

Carrefour reported this week a net profit of Euro 82 million as it seeks to expand to markets in Brazil and China.
Vivendi, French media and telecom group also reported today a 6.6% rise in profit to 1.26 billion Euros for the first half of the year.

Currencies
The dollar fell to a 15-year low against the Yen. The euro fell to a 9-year low against the yen, and the British pound to 3-month low against the yen. The strength of the yen causes concern for exporters.

Apple’s quarterly profit shot up by 78% due to sales of its iPad and latest version of the iPhone 4. This was in $1 billion more in revenue than Wall Street had predicted, and Apple’s 4th quarter revenue is projected to be $18 billion.

The 3rd quarter increase in sales is in spite of consumer and media reports and media which have both announced a problem in reception with the iPhone4. Steve Jobs’ reaction was to sell free cases for the phones.
It is also in stark contrast to other technology stocks, such as Intel, Hewlett Packard, Cisco Systems, and Yahoo all dropped in the 3rd quarter.

Of these three, Microsoft is the leader in profit, with $4.25 billion compared with Apple’s $3.25 billion and Google’s $1.8 billion. Profit dollars come from the release of Windows 7 (with 175 million copies sold), Bing, and Office 2010. Microsoft has announced that it will later release a smartphone and the Kinect.

Public announcements of stock sales is an excellent time to invest in binary options, as we will discuss in a later post.

Binary options really came of age in 2008, with the addition of them to the Chicago Board of Exchange (CBOE) and the North American Derivatives Exchange (NADEX). Since then, their popularity has exploded among both the financial trading and gaming industries.
Once offered in these major financial exchanges, they became a part of the exchange market and brought government regulations and taxes.

In traditional trading, traders predict the precise value of stocks in the future, buying a contract for that amount. The expiration date can be set several months or weeks in advance. As the price increases or decreases, the owner of the future can buy more futures contracts or sell them. With binary options, contracts expire much more quickly, and traders simply wait out the trade until the time of expiry instead of buying and selling up until the time of expiry. Although it is much less flexible for traders, it is also much simpler. Some more experienced traders see binary options as a means for beginning traders to get experience trading in the traditional market. Then again, many experienced traders are now getting involved in the binary options market!

With its exponential increase in popularity we have witnessed the same principles of binary options trading applied to fixed-odds gaming on the weather, television shows, sports, and political events. There are hundreds of online sites with fixed-odds gaming of different teams and events from all over the world.

After the BP oil catastrophe, President Obama banned drilling in US waters deeper than 500 feet on May 30, opponents of the ban warned of a possible surge in oil prices.

Futhermore, his decision to delay drilling near Alaska until 2011 caused deep concern to oil companies already expected to open operations in that area, ConocoPhillips and Shell Oil Co. Opponents of the regulations warn of unemployment rising in the oil industry in particular and related industries as well as fewer jobs will be available than expected.

In addition to the ban additional regulations were proposed by government officials that include increasing standards and frequency of safety inspections of rigs and platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico.
The question remains as to what these regulations will do to the price of oil and the price of stocks of oil companies over the long and short term.

Market analysts speculate that gold could be the next bubble, as large investors continue to buy gold along with other commodities as a safe investment against the rising economic instability in Europe and now Asia.

Developing countries have simultaneously been buying gold as a safe and secure place to store monetary assets.

Both reactions have caused a rise in the price of gold over in the last week of May even though demand has fallen in the first quarter of 2010. But what is more interesting is that gold prices are extremely sensitive to sentiment, or people’s perception of the value of the commodity.

Financial investors are largely responsible for the market price of gold, who decide whether they believe the price of gold will rise, and then invest in gold. This causes the price of gold to rise even further, as investor sentiment rises.

The price of gold has been known to fall in times of wealth and economic prosperity, however.  In times of severe economic hardship, as in ware or economic collapse, it has been known to be a fairly liquid investment which can be easily traded for money.

North Korea announced Tuesday that it would sever ties with South Korea and no longer continue to adhere to the non-aggression pact with Seoul.

In response, the Asian markets fell – Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average by 3.1%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index by 3.5%, Taiwan’s Taiex by 3.2%, Thailand’s SET Index gave up 3.1%, and Singapore’s Straits Times Index by 2.7%. Other indices throughout the world also fell, including Australia’s S&P/ASX 200, India’s Sensex, and Indonesia’s JSX.

But by Wednesday many of these markets had recovered, at least for the short-term. Many market analysts explained the rise of world markets as a reaction of investors looking to buy investments cheaply due to the fall in stock prices.

It remains to be seen how the market will continue to react with the rising political tensions in Korea and the continued economic turmoil in Europe. These political tensions can be a good time to invest in binary options, especially in currencies like the Euro and yen.

We will soon start posting our own take of the commodities market.

But first, here is a nice report for today from FuturesMag.com. Use this to trade commodities on our site at Bull Options.